In his receent review of Ross Ainslie’s new album ‘Pool’ (read it here), Thomas Blake noted that, like its predecessors, Pool is an album designed to be listened to in one sitting…so here’s the perfect companion to that listening experience.
Ross Ainslie wrote a Track-by-Track guide and insight to his new album for KLOF Mag which you can read while listening to each track, below. If you haven’t already done so, you can order Ross’ new album via Bandcamp here: https://rossainslie.bandcamp.com/album/pool
The true genius of Pool lies in how it reconciles its stylistically varied individual tracks with an overall mood that remains consistent—and consistently engaging—throughout its run time. Ainslie’s goal is to make the listener actually listen. It’s harder than it might seem, but he has pulled it off with panache, originality, and an often breathtaking range of musical invention.
Thomas Blake on Pool
Ross Ainslie on Pool (Track by Track)
1 HIGH PLACE PHENOMENON
This track started out with the bass riff, which I originally played on midi; I played about with a few ideas and eventually landed on the string line motif, which fitted in perfectly. This was the catalyst for using a string quartet on more tracks on the album, which was fun as it’s new territory for me writing for strings! Gradually, over time, the wee tune appeared; it’s just a simple A B format, but what’s different with it is both parts start in Em, and then the 2nd time round, they go to F#m.
2 STEP IN THE DIVIDE
Aileen An Fheòrag
I was commissioned to write this tune a few years ago and always thought it would be great for the band. This is quite a simple arrangement of the tune, but the middle drop down section had a few different attempts before settling. Myself and Steve were working on it at my flat, and for some reason, I put up a synth sound, and the solo happened, so what you hear is the exact solo that was done in my flat, my first synth solo! The cool-sounding drum in the drop down section is played by James; it’s called an Udu drum, a kind of clay pot thing; he gets a great bass tone out of it!
3 CAST IN A POOL OF KNOWLEDGE
This is one of my favourites on the album; it’s kind of in 2 sections; the first bit has been around on my computer for quite a long time, I think it was actually meant for Vana, but it just didn’t fit in with the vibe of that album so I’m glad that it made it on Pool. The first section is based around the cittern chords, and over time, after playing about, I got the string parts together; it’s repetitive but builds! The 2nd section was one of these eureka moments, as I didn’t know where to go after the first section. I’d kind of lost hope with it, to be honest. Anyways, one night, quite late on, I decided to give it another go and straight away, the string parts arrived and not long after the tune. I liked the idea of having a tom-tom solo in it, kind of 80’s rock vibe, so I got some drum sounds up in midi and played a part in; it’s not far off what James is playing here. It’s funny how music and inspiration go; there’s absolutely no rhyme or reason to it, but when it hits, there’s no better feeling!
4 KARMATIC
I had this cittern riff kicking about for a while; it was one of these things that I would always play when picking up the cittern noodling about. The tune came very quickly after having a jam with Steve on the guitar. Greg Lawson added some great ideas to the strings on this track. While working on this album, I spent a good bit of time up at Hamish’s house in Grantown on Spey; just after the cittern riff, Hamish plays an amazing rhythm piano section that really makes this track, in my opinion, perfectly joining the two different ideas together.
5 ALL MY YEARS
Lament For Ukraine
This is my debut performance on the Uilleann pipes. I wrote this tune for a Ukraine fundraiser gig, originally playing it on the Highland Pipes. The recording of the pipes was actually done in Hamish’s living room in Grantown. I just put it down to start the demo process of the track, but I loved the vibe of it and didn’t think I could play it any better in the studio, so it stayed in! I had Donal Lunny in my mind a lot while thinking of the arrangement and asking, “What would Donal do with this track?” Hopefully, it has a ‘Moving Hearts’ kinda thing about it?
6 CALL OF THE VOID
I got inspiration for the opening of this track from Brazilian band ‘Forro in the Dark’, one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen. I was playing at a world music festival with Salsa Celtica in Nijmegen; we had a day off before our gig, so we headed down to the fest to check out some bands, and Forro were on, and they blew us away. I loved the Brazilian flute, and I’ve been listening to them ever since (sadly, they don’t play together anymore). Anyways, the track started out with a riff I came up with after getting my new Mandola, and then I added a bamboo flute solo over it. The tune pretty much wrote itself after jamming with Steve again in the flat. I can’t remember if we decided on Hamish doing a piano solo at his house working on the tunes or if it was a studio decision, but I love what Hamish did with this track.
7 RAT HORNS
Rae aig tri fichead gu leth
Andrew and Corinne
Sax player Paul Towndrow joined the Sanctuary band for the Vana recording, and since then, I’ve had it in my mind to get a full brass section on a track. The brass part is basically matching the bass part, which I wrote on midi; I remember Paul was really busy leading up to the brass recording, and all I had was the bass part that I’d exported into Sibelius. The night before the recording session, at about 10pm, myself and Paul eventually got on Zoom; we went through the bass part with him, layering it up for trombone, sax and trumpet—Paul’s a monster musician, so much knowledge in scoring music. The name Rat Horns came from the designer of this album, Somhairle Macdonald; I had him round at the flat one day, letting him hear some of the ideas I was working on. I had set up a midi brass section to play in the brass solo, and, as you can imagine, it’s not the greatest sound in the world, with Somhairle commenting that it sounded like rat horns, so the name just stuck.
8 SYNC OR SWIM
This is quite a strange track for me, it’s not my usual sound. It is all based around the Mandola picky part, which was a thing I couldn’t stop playing when picking up my mandola. Hamish added a lot of great ideas to this track; all the piano lines were worked out at his house, and he really made this track gel together, so big thanks to him. There’s spoken word on this track by my good pal Jock Urquhart; this is the 3rd album that Jock’s been involved in with me; I send Jock some of my thoughts, and he takes them, adds his own thing and pieces it together brilliantly. This track finishes with some street sounds from Jodphur taken by Bhawani Singh Begad, segueing into the next track.
9 DAWN IN THE BLUE CITY
I’ve played in Jodphur at the Rajasthani International Folk Festival a few times over the years; the festival takes place in the Mehrangarh fort, which looks onto the Blue City. They always have a dawn concert, which is a really special thing to witness. I stayed up for it one year, and this track really reminds me of that experience. Sitting in the dark, the concert starts gradually, while in the distance, the sun appears on the horizon, and the city slowly starts to wake up.
10 SLOW DOWN
I originally wrote this track for a band I play with called ’Tryst’, a ten-piece pipe band doing more modern arrangements for the bagpipes. It never sounded the way I wanted it to, just with the nature of the bagpipes and tuning, etc. it can be difficult, but I’m so chuffed with how it turned out on this recording. This is technically the last track of Pool, so if you bought a vinyl copy, the album finishes here, but I’ve added two extra bonus tracks on the CD and digital!
11 PLANET OF THE VAPES
This is another different-sounding track for me, another that came from playing about on my new mandola. I would play these chords over and over and eventually decided to record them and work on an arrangement for them. I wrote the melody on the cittern one night, just messing about, more like an improv thing, but I liked the ideas that were happening, so it stayed in.
12 KINDRED SPIRITS
Oor Tune
This tune was a commission from my pals Sarah and Sue. I had already recorded a version of this tune for the guys, and this version is not too far off the original, just bulked up a bit by the band, and also was great to get my pal Gus Sicard on the track playing pipe band snare, he’s a member of Inveraray and District Pipe Band the current world champions!
Order Pool via Bandcamp: https://rossainslie.bandcamp.com/album/pool