Calum Wood – She Wynds On
Magic Park Records – 16 December 2018
With a softly picked guitar and an even softer vocal, Highland guitarist and composer and teacher Calum Wood introduces a 90-mile journey from Perthshire, through the Cairngorm National Park and into the Highlands ‘The Snow Roads’. She Wynds On is a five track E.P. from Calum Wood that forms part of The SnowRoads, an initiative led by Cairngorm Business Partnership to attract visitors to this fascinating route. Despite the gentle lull of Calum’s voice, the journey starts at a pace and opens up as Charlie McKerron’s fiddle adds a chatter of strings. Brigid Mhairi’s harmonies seem to blend perfectly not only with Calum’s warm vocals but also with Ross Ainslie’s low whistle. The only song on the E.P., She Wynds On charts the journey, the landscape, the people, and the wildlife that populate the route. “That snow road she winds on/through the heart of the Cairngorm“. Charlie’s fiddle adopts multiple voices, some atmospheric, some lightly dancing, as whistle takes up the fiddle’s dance for an evocative introduction to this unique journey.
The music was composed by Calum as an audio accompaniment to a journey along the winding roads from Blairgowrie in Perthshire, into the Cairngorm Mountains and up into Royal Deeside; taking in Braemar, Balmoral & Ballater before heading over the stunning mountain roads to Corgarff, Tomintoul and Grantown-on-Spey.
Blairgowrie to Braemar begins the journey with a reflective and stately opening from the soft drone of Robert Black’s accordion and Calum’s guitar. Julia Dignan’s fiddle takes up the guitar melody towards a beautiful Highland air. Braemar to Ballater opens the next chapter of the journey with a more contemporary sound. Percussion drives the steady pace for a gently tumbling flute melody from Tom Oakes, before atmospheric electric guitar heralds a more emphatic melody and a sense of drama, as piano takes charge among layers of flute, guitar and fiddle.
A pair of tunes marks the journey from Ballater to Tomintoul. Among light keyboards and soft percussion, the guitar picks out a melody, and the piano takes up the invitation with soft jazz undertones. Through the steady twists and turns, Tom’s flute can’t resist joining the interplay between piano and fiddle before gathering pace towards a cantering, joyful descent. The closing chapter, taking us from Tomintoul to Grantown-On-Spey, opens on quiet, ethereal strings as piano calls out to a frosty void before a thaw of quietly tumbling water opens up to wide vistas.
It’s easy to imagine this work as a soundtrack to the fascinating journey that inspired it. As part of a ‘digital toolkit’, that visitors can access via a mobile app, the music augments an audio guide to the journey, it’s glorious views, spectacular landscapes and fascinating wildlife. The route itself is well worth travelling, and in She Wynds On, Calum Wood‘s cinematic music is beautifully evocative of the experience.