Post Description

Folk, fiddle, Celtic, traditional.

With all her former and current impressive work with Scotland’s A-level folk musos, it’s almost incredible Vent is fiddler/composer Laura Jane Wilkie’s first solo release. Then again, if you immerse yourself in a project as she has done here, things will take their time to happen…

Vent is not just another very good Celtic or Trad or Scottish Folk release. It’s an essential work in this field of music, as it builds a direct, strong and vibrant bridge from old Gaelic songs of the Outer Hebrides to our time’s incarnation of folk music. Wilkie does not simply use the ancient songs as her compositional raw material; she re-visions them and gives them a new, meaningful and very touching life in an instrumental form in 2024.

The effort and work she has put into this album is fantastic; she should get some kind of cultural award or recognition for this. For comparison: when Peter Gabriel released Passion, the soundtrack for Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, he also released a cd called Passion: Sources that contained all the original music from various countries and cultures he had used in composing and putting togther Passion.

It was the right and honorable thing of him to do, and Laura Jane Wilkie has done something like that with Vent. Just go to https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/s/laurajanewilkie to learn about each original song and also listen to the old field recordings of these songs, most of them collected by Scottish folklorists and ethnographers many decades ago. It’s stunning.

Also, check out her Vent interview at https://tracscotland.org/blog/making-vent-by-laura-jane-wilkie/ to learn about the album’s overall creative process, and please, please go to https://discoverhighlandsandislands.scot/en/spirit-360/laura-wilkie to discover the strong message behind Try, the album’s closing piece and its only fully original tune.

After all that information, I am more than happy to note that the music on Vent is as brilliant as its back story. Old waulking songs turn into lovely, glowing tunes without losing connection to the original melodies. Her fiddle playing is perfect and wonderfully supported by fab musicians, guitarist Ian Carr most of all. On top of all that, the album, produced by herself and Sarah Hayes, also sounds excellent, so take out your best headphones to get the most out of it.

An artistic triumph and a notable work of culture and history: a rare and precious event. I’m already picking Vent as a strong candidate for album of the year in 2024.

Tracks:
01. “I Am Sad in the Braes of the Glen”
02. Lift Up My Love
03. I’m Not Alone
04. Mermaid
05. A New Story
06. A Man Ran Off
07. Albatross
08. The Sailor Has Good Chat
09. Try

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.