Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club - Gates of Gold

Price in Australian dollars (postage will be added when you complete your order and check out). $25.00: / Unit

Gates of Gold is the fourth album from this large group of fiddling enthusiasts from Melbourne, Australia. The Club began meeting monthly in 1995 as a chance for fiddling fans to get together and share tunes, and have been going from strength to strength ever since, performing and recording around the world. On this recording there are 33 fiddlers, playing in various combinations and with various guest accompaniments including drums, doublebass, cello, harp, hornpipes, piano, flute, guitar, mandolin and saxophone.

At fifteen tracks and over an hour, this album is full to the brim of tunes and offers some very sweet sounds. Well-considered arrangements and choice of material ensure the programme is diverse and richly textured, with everything from lively reels to haunting Gaelic ballads, and a few other surprises in between. There is an interpretation of Bob Dylan’s early anti-war song “Let Me Die In My Footsteps”, in which the strings take on a more sonorous orchestral flavour, and the title track is an adaptation of a Robert Louis Stevenson poem set to music by the Club’s arranger Neil Adam.

There are a couple of tributes to the legendary Gow family of fiddlers and musicians – Niel Gow in “A Herd Of Gows” and other members of the Gow family in “Ghost Of The Gows”. One of my favourite tracks is the “Johnny / Hughie / Billy” set, for its spirit of sheer joyfulness, and the vocal track “Wheels Of Fortune” featuring the gorgeous voices of the Wise sisters.

As the name suggests, the group focus on Scottish fiddle traditions, from the Scottish Hebrides to Cape Breton, and even a momentary nod to the Appalachian connection. Mostly this is a collection of traditional tunes, played with obvious delight and passion for the material. On the tracks that feature the whole group massed together, the sound is amazing – a silvery wash of strings dipping and gliding in perfect unison. On other tracks soloists are featured, highlighting the textures of their particular instrument, and there is some very fine playing here indeed. review by Bradfield Dumpleton 2009