Rura
Dusk Moon
Self Released
17 March 2023
The last time I wrote about Rura, it was to review their live album they released, marking their tenth year as a band. Packed with guests and reprising the full decade of their music, it remains a glorious souvenir of the kind of half gig, half party night that Glasgow’s Old Fruit Market delivers so well. Dusk Moon could hardly be more different. An expertly crafted suite of new material, it showcases both the compositional and performance prowess of all four band members, revealing how those talents have continued to develop and mature over the last two years.
The album opens with Journeys Home, originally written as the soundtrack to a short film made for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations in 2021, a film bringing together the dual emotions so common on New Year’s Eve, nostalgia for the past and hope for the future. Rura took this as a perfect opportunity “to build an arrangement that conveyed hope, love and optimism”. It now makes an equally perfect introduction to an album, the seeds of which germinated during the extended period of reflection that, for all of us, characterised 2020/21. It’s an album Rura feels is life-affirming, full of optimism and solace. This opening track, written by piper and keyboard player Steven Blake, starts very gently, only the piano setting the rhythm for a few seconds before it’s joined by Adam Brown’s acoustic guitar, two times through a simple melody, and David Foley joins on flute, the pattern repeated to bring in Jack Smedley’s fiddle and finally, Steven on rather subdued pipes. By now, the guitar and David’s bodhrán are setting a slightly increased pace, but the relaxed, calming ambience continues through to the end. This first track introduces almost the entire instrument palette used on the album, but Adam sometimes switches to electric guitar and also adds a bass line on several tracks, a role shared with album producer Euan Burton.
The album’s title track, Dusk Moon, follows. Written by Jack, it begins at a slow pace, set by long-held bass notes and electric guitar chords behind a livelier, repetitive acoustic guitar riff and light bodhrán rhythm. Once established, the pipes add a further layer with lengthy individual notes and occasional runs. This is all inspired by the album’s cover, an intensely atmospheric forest image from artist Calum McClure and the resulting music would be the perfect accompaniment to an evening stroll through such a scene. When the fiddle enters, as it surely must in a tune written by Jack, it is to kick off McClure’s Reel, and the mood is immediately invigorated. The bodhrán takes on a more forceful beat, and eventually the pipes rejoin the party. The two faces of Rura in a single track, both producing first-class entertainment.
The next two tracks both have a connection to weddings. Think of Today is another composition from Jack written for his wife Fiona and inspired by a poem read at their wedding. Light and airy, it is a fiddle tune at heart but completed by the gentlest of bodhrán beats, guitar and bass lines.
The Soft Mist Over All is from David, and his flute playing takes centre stage in the initial, quiet section. It feels as though this beautiful tune is enticing the other three to join in, and, while they build up the track in volume and complexity, it never loses its stately pace. And the wedding connection? David gifted the tune to good friends Graeme and Carly Armstrong on their wedding day.
The following tracks form a neat counterbalance to the airy and stately vibes of the previous two. The Grove is a two-tune set, the first, Usual Time, Usual Place, written by Adam and Jack. It sets off as a lively interplay between the guitar and fiddle, developing into a breakneck-paced, full-band piece and, along the way, morphing into the second tune, El Capitan. As this was co-written by Steven and Jack, the pipes take over the guitar’s rôle in the interplay while Jack coaxes ever more rapid bursts of brilliance from his fiddle. Rise follows a similar trajectory, again composed of two distinct tunes, Still We Rise from Jack and Storm Island from Steven. Both these tracks speak to the optimism that gradually blossomed in the early months of 2022 as an end to pandemic restrictions grew from a hope into a reality.
With Hollow Ground, the music returns to a calmer, more reflective mood, and both mood and music have very specific roots. When developing arrangements for the album, Rura decamped from the bustle of Glasgow to the Speyside village of Boat of Garten, where they found inspiration a plenty walking the ancient forests surrounding the village. This tune from Jack perfectly captures that setting, fiddle and flute, each gently reinforcing the other to produce probably the most laid-back of all the pieces.
Having decided to play one of the band’s strongest cards and consciously interweave the frantic with the placid, I imagine there could have been a debate over how best to close the set. Whatever the debate, frantic won out, resulting in the final two tracks being the liveliest on the album. Imagine music that would conjure up the memory of spending two hours in a force 8 gale whilst your rib makes its way out to an Inner Hebrides island. That would be Jack’s piece, Crinan to Colonsay, his fiddle and Steven’s pipes creating musical turmoil with an ever-increasing tempo. The album closes with a more conventional three-tune set given the overall title, A Minor Emergency. It opens with a tune from David, Billy on the Bodhrán, not surprisingly featuring his bodhrán but also giving his flute a central rôle. This tune merges into another by David, The House on the Hill and, concluding the set, is the most boisterous tune of the three, a reel, The Reel O’Garten, in which Steven’s pipes take over the lead and bring the album to a rousing crescendo.
Throughout the writing of this review, the notion of Rura as the musical equivalent of Janus, the two-faced Roman god, has refused to leave me. Maybe not totally appropriate, but Rura have used this album to deliberately highlight the two facets, if not faces, of the band. They’re as comfortable constructing moody musical landscapes as they are blowing up a storm that would get any audience on its feet and dancing. Dusk Moon gives us equal shares of both, executed to perfection. Their reputation has already spread far and wide; the gig they’re playing down here on England’s south coast as part of the Dusk Moon launch tour sold out months ago, and this album is guaranteed to boost it further.
Dusk Moon will be showcased on a 15-date tour in England and Scotland in March/April, including a date at London’s King’s Place – Details here.
Dusk Moon is released today and is available via Bandcamp: https://rura.bandcamp.com/album/dusk-moon