Content area
Full Text
TV CREWS looking for the new face of Celtic music - and there's been a fair few of them at Celtic Connections - simply love Martyn Bennett. Not only is his sound suitably funky and futuristic, but the face fits, too And sure enough, there was the cameraman prowling around on stage after Bennett and his two similarly photogenic Cuillin Music cohorts, Deirdre MacLullich (fiddle) and Kirsten Thomson (keyboards) - lapping up shots of the crowd, to show the viewers at home that (gosh!) folk music isn't all about beards and Aran sweaters any more.
The great thing about Bennett, though, is that while he does - with his pipes, fiddle and whistle, his dreadlocks and his headphones, his hip-hop, his drum'n'bass - embody today's transformation of trad, as far as he's concerned that's an incidental issue. His primary commitment is to his music, both the Scottish traditions he grew up steeped in and the Nineties clubland styles he splices them with. As Friday's show demonstrated once again, beyond the novelty value of looped beats and electronic soundscapes ceilidhing away with souped-up strathspeys and pipe marches, lie layers of craft and imagination.
Several of Canada's Celtic young turks (if that's not a mixed metaphor too far) have shown a distinctly unhealthy preoccupation with style over substance (step forward Ashley McIsaac) but Cape Breton's latest ambassadors to Glasgow, Slainthe Mhath, proved thankfully free of such pretensions at their Saturday afternoon show. Instead, joyous musicality and giving the folks out front a good time were the order of the day. The anchor of the band is the partnership of Ryan McNeill's piano and Bruce McPhee's pipes, locking on to one another and motoring through the dance steps with melodic depth and irresistible swing. At home in the wickedly rhythmic accompaniment style that's such an exhilarating hallmark of the Cape Breton sound, McNeill also carried the tune in several numbers, notably an exquisite reworking of an old Planxty track, picked out with baroque delicacy and grace. The rest of the line-up, on fiddle, drums, bouzouki and various percussion, took more of a back seat -apart from Lisa Gallant's fleet-footed step-dance routines - but their arrangements in general revealed a level of intelligence and imagination that bodes well...