This second album from the young Scottish fiddler Ryan Young is a very welcome reassertion of the outstanding talent he’d displayed on his 2017 self-titled debut recording. Mixing traditional and contemporary tunes, occasionally even in the same set, he’s shown again an unerring sense of how to succeed in developing a personal interpretation of an established tune, the two lying comfortably together.
His 2017 album was showered with praise and hailed as a recording certain to enhance the growing acclaim his live performances had already attracted. By then, he’d won a Danny Kyle Award at Celtic Connections and been named the “Up and Coming Artist of the Year” at the Scots Trad Music Awards. His innovative and highly personal approach to the interpretation of fiddle pieces old and new attracted the attention of respected players such as Martin Hayes, who declared “he has the potential to make a very significant contribution to the Scottish tradition”, and Liz Carroll who considered herself “blown away by this singular musician”. The subsequent years, though, have not treated Ryan kindly, as he explains in his notes on the CD sleeve of Just a Second. An undiagnosed issue with his left hand steadily worsened and almost stopped him from playing. Once treatment finally started to improve matters, he found himself having to relearn how to play, followed by a long process of confidence building. He concludes his explanation with a sentence that will resonate with anyone who has had a similar experience. When your hands don’t deliver what your heart feels, you can easily fall into despair and when an injury puts you further away still, it can feel like an impossible battle.
Thankfully, in Ryan’s case, it was a battle he was able to win, resulting in an album consisting of nine tune sets, a mix of traditional and more modern compositions that once again demonstrate a range of his interpretations and his utter mastery of the fiddle. He’s aided in realising these interpretations by the guitar playing of Craig Irving, who provides the only accompaniment. An interesting contrast with the range of instruments and players that are found on Ryan’s first album. Some continuity with that previous recording comes from the presence of Jesse Lewis as producer, who, this time, also had a hand in the mixing along with Christopher Moretti.
The album opens with two traditional tunes, Woo’ed An Married An A’ and Fingal’s Cave. They’re taken at a fairly leisurely pace and, from the off, show Ryan’s playing continues to be inspired by influences that roam much wider than his native Scotland. In this case, Irish, perhaps a Clare style, is to the fore, hardly surprising as Ryan has always acknowledged Martin Hayes as a primary influence. Martin may have been among the first, but Ryan has always taken pains to recognise the many others who have had a role, either in person or through their music. Acknowledging influences is all well and good, but it’s what you do with them that matters, and this is why Ryan’s playing has made such an impression, melding so many disparate influences to produce a style that is uniquely his.
The album’s second piece moves from music that’s a couple of centuries old to pairing tunes from composers active on the current Scottish scene, Iain MacFarlane’s Willie Macrae’s Jig and Phil Cunningham’s The Monday Morning Reel. The first may have been written with the time signature of a jig, but Ryan certainly doesn’t take it at a dance pace. Rather, the stately progress of the fiddle and the gentle rhythm of the accompanying guitar chords give both tunes a relaxing, gentle vibe. All that changes with the next pair of reels. The Bird’s Nest bursts with energy, just as you’d expect of a traditional Irish tune, and the Scottish ‘S Iomadh Rud A Chunnaic Mi matches it for pace whilst having a simpler structure, betraying its origins as a puirt a beul piece.
The opening of the next track restores calm with the strathspey Ben Lomond, and this continues with the only slightly faster-paced Mrs MacGlashan’s Jig. This is the first of several of the album’s tunes that have their origins in the Scottish tradition but which, through emigration, were transported to Canada, specifically to Cape Breton, sometimes via Ireland. The stages of this journey can often be charted by differing versions of the tune that developed en route. It’s tempting to think of the interpretations Ryan has now devised as another stage in that process. Certainly, throughout his career, he has consciously taken inspiration from the tunes of these other Celtic lands. And there’s no better example than the third tune of the next set, Little Donald in the Pigpen. Prince Edward Island lays claim to the title, at least relating it to a piper’s drunken escapade in the 1930s. The tune, though, doubtless dates from well before then, having some similarities to the Irish reel, The Jolly Tinker. Two of the other Scottish tunes have strong Cape Breton links. Mrs MacGugan’s Rant and Knit the Pockey both have versions collected there, and the album’s final track, The Mortgage Burn, is a recent composition by Cape Breton resident, the prolific composer and pianist Gordon MacLean.
The recording of Just a Second was handled by Ross David Saunders at Glasgow’s GloWorm Studios, with Ryan and guitar accompanist Craig playing live in the same space. Ryan explains this somewhat old-school approach as stemming from being willing to accept any “blemishes and audio artefacts” as a consequence of being “more interested in how something makes me feel”. Craig has been an unsung hero in this review so far, but that just reflects how his accompaniment unerringly hits the right chord sequences and rhythms to support the fiddle melodies, expanding, but never intruding into, the emotional soundscapes the fiddle generates.
One often sees the phrase “breathing fresh life into” used to describe new arrangements of traditional tunes. But that doesn’t come close to describing what Ryan Young achieves with his treatments of both traditional and contemporary tunes. He has the musical imagination to see a tune’s potential for apparently endless variations and the compositional and performance skills to bring them to fruition. To enjoy Ryan’s music, it’s not necessary to be familiar with the various styles of fiddle playing, nor the history of an individual tune. Remember, Ryan is interested in how his music makes him feel and just listening to this album provides you, the listener, with opportunities galore for emotional involvement, ranging from the blissful tranquillity of Ben Lomond to the foot-tapping stomp of Little Donald in the Pigpen.
Order the album via Ryan’s website: http://www.ryanyoung.scot/shop.html
Tour Dates: http://www.ryanyoung.scot/tour.html