Kinnaris Quintet – This Too
Self Released – 4 May 2022
Kinnaris Quintet’s debut album, 2018’s Free One, achieved something that many musicians find difficult: it captured on disc the essence of the band’s exhilarating live performances, their boldness, the energy and the intricacy of their interplay and their unpretentious experimentation. This successful transition from live venue to studio may have been rooted in how the group retained complete creative control over the project. They were keen to emphasise the honesty of the recordings – original sets of folk-adjacent tunes played on fiddle, guitar and mandolin – and that honesty really shone through. It was the sound of five extremely talented musicians doing their own thing on their own terms. Simple but extremely effective.
A lot has happened in the four years since Free One was released. For a band that thrives on closeness and whose natural habitat is an intimate live setting, the Covid pandemic – particularly the long days of lockdown – could have presented a huge, perhaps insurmountable problem. For a while, gigging was impossible. Practicing and recording together became increasingly difficult. The very existence of many bands was in jeopardy. Musicians had to ask themselves some tricky questions. Some of these questions were familiar but were made more pressing by the situation: ‘How do we go about recording our next album?’ Others took an existential turn: ‘ Are we still a band if we can’t play together?’
The Glasgow-based quintet (the fiddle trifecta of Laura Wilkie, Aileen Reid and Fiona MacAskill, guitarist Jenn Butterworth and Laura-Beth Salter on mandolin and tenor guitar) not only recognised these questions early on but set about answering them with an admirable positivity. The answers took the form of a new collection of tunes, created in a whole new way. Each band member had to adapt to working remotely, trying out tunes in physical isolation before they finally got the chance to record them together last year in Glasgow’s GloWorm Studio. The ensuing album, This Too, is packed with just as much musical positivity as its predecessor and ups the ante in terms of creativity and ambition. The opening track, Wonderful, begins with a driving, rhythmic fiddle and plucked strings that evoke the urgency and brightness of spring. The middle section – Diego’s – was composed by the accordionist John Somerville and works brilliantly with multiple fiddles, while the final tune in the first set is an exultant musical shout-out to the women of the folk scene (and is compelling proof that you don’t need lyrics to display political awareness).
The first part of Period Drama, Baby Isle Of Ewe, was composed by Ian Carr, a friend of Wilkie’s. It’s jaunty, lopsided, with a skiffle-like shuffle and jazzy overtones. It is paired with the more 48FPs, written by Reid, whose fiddle leads Salter’s mandolin on a merry barn-dance. At this point, only two tracks into the album, we are already aware that there is a freedom, a kind of controlled abandon to the quintet’s playing that may have emerged as a reaction to the difficulties and challenges the group have faced. It is clear that these tunes are made for sharing, for intense live performance and joyous improvisation. But this shouldn’t detract from the fact that they also work perfectly as studio recordings – it is just another facet of the group’s talent and adaptability.
There are more reflective moments too. The sinuous fiddle melody of MacAskill’s Happy Days (featured in the latest Folk Show here) conjures arcadian images of hills and streams. There is an air of tranquil nostalgia to the piece, and it comes as no surprise to learn that it was inspired by MacAskill’s grandmother’s house in North Uist. Hayley And Chris is more celebratory (it was written for Aileen’s friends’ wedding in Croatia), but it begins with a pensive and almost apprehensive passage that soon gives way to a blossoming brightness as the fiddles and guitar build upon each other before breaking into a sweet, hopeful dialogue.
Burdland shifts back into a faster gear, its opening section a musical approximation of a run through the Donegal hills. A more sedate concluding part contains a sly, gleeful reference to the Weather Report’s Birdland, proof, if any were needed, that this group’s inspiration goes way beyond the realm of folk: their skills as musicians are more than up to the task of negotiating a composition by the most acclaimed jazz/fusion keyboardist in musical history.
They go in yet another direction on Bonobo’s, whose first few seconds resemble graceful chamber music before Reid’s melodies become more playful, while Jenn Butterworth’s composition Halifax has the feel of a miniature epic about it: there is a sad goodbye, a storm, and an enveloping calm, and it’s all tied together by an impressionistic guiding hand.
The upbeat nature of This Too is best exemplified by its title track, which is propelled along by a bouncing, rhythmic acoustic guitar and features some of the album’s most impressively kinetic fiddle work. Given the sheer diversity of the work across the album, it sounds counterintuitive to suggest that the quintet have a signature sound, but despite the wide range of influences, there is a sonic thread that runs through all of these tunes, and it is perhaps most clearly discernible in the last couple of minutes of the title track. It’s not really to do with an adherence to any genre (you could call them ‘Celtic folk’, but that seems insufficient); it’s more about how the sound arrives in distinct yet always linked layers, about how the fiddles build and filter into each other until three of them sound like one or one sounds like all three.
It takes the comparatively minimal charms of Extro-Intro before you notice the structural, almost architectural nature of the eight tracks that precede it. It features some mightily skillfully plucked strings and leads naturally into Dishgo, the first part of which is inspired by Salter’s father’s love of heavy metal. Fittingly, it has a playful doominess to it that wouldn’t feel out of place on something by Black Sabbath or Metallica. The second part is a brisk fiddle tune that breaks through like a ray of sunshine then returns to a rockier, harder-edged sound. The album finishes with Back Road To Schots, which moves subtly but inevitably from a quietly plucked march to a flighty, acrobatic fiddle tune that perfectly exemplifies the obvious joy that pervades the Kinnaris Quintet’s music.
This Too may have been conceived in difficult times, but it is an object lesson in making the best out of your circumstances. This is incredibly accomplished music, but more than that it is full of heart and hope.
This Too is released today, 4th May. Order the album via Bandcamp
Album Trailer:
Kinnaris Quintet Live Dates
06 May – Baltoppen LIVE : Showcase Scotland : DENMARK 2022 Ballerup, Denmark
13 May – Skye Live 2022, Portree
13 Jun – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
14 Jul – Doune The Rabbit Hole 2022, Port Of Menteith
17 Jul – Folk by the Oak 2022, Hayfield
28 Jul – Belladrum Tartan Heart 2022, Inverness-shire
29 Jul – Underneath The Stars Festival 2022, Barnsley
15 Sep – Ceòl Cholasa 2022, Isle Of Colonsay
15 Sep – Ceòl Cholasa 2022, Isle Of Colonsay
Ticket links and more via: https://www.kinnarisquintet.com/