As 2024 dissolves to its twinkly tinselly conclusion, Crail Folk Club ends its year's guest evenings in stellar fashion. We thought we were just getting Kris Drever but surprise, surprise, he was accompanied by Laura Wilkie, last seen in Crail, fiddle firing on all cylinders with the dynamic Kinnaris Quintet.
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Laura led the evening off with a set of strathspeys, 'The Smith's a Gallant Fireman' and 'The Sweetness of Mary' - most agreeable to the shell-likes.
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She's been studying, and by her own admission, 'geeking out' on waulking songs, immersing herself in the Scottish archives and working with Rona Lightfoot from South Uist to adapt them for the fiddle. Let's just say that her mission has been a huge success, what we heard this evening was a refreshing and imaginative flexing of what traditional fiddle music can be. 'I Am Sad in the Braes of the Glen', 'A Man Ran Off With Another Woman' - titles that yield the concerns of the women as they worked the cloth.
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Her latest album ‘Vent’, is centred around waulking songs and was made in-cahoots with the guitar genius that is Ian Carr... it's certainly on my Santa list. Oh, by the way, on the subject of Ian Carr, if you ever get the chance, track down an album called 'Shhh' by Ian Carr and accordion Jedi Karen Tweed, it's magnificent.
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To round off Laura’s set, Kris Drever joins her for Phil Cunningham's 'The Gentle Light That Wakes Me' - a beautiful slow air - so beautiful the clocks must surely have stopped to listen in.
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After the customary raffle ‘n’ floor spot interval, Kris takes his place in the light, a haunting loop pedal guitar drone and a bass pedal ‘doof’ to mark time underlies a beautiful, almost mystical guitar melody - a pipe tune by Diarmaid Moynihan - segueing neatly into 'More Than you Know' - 'You know more than you know, wherever you go the truth will follow' - aye, there's wisdom in that.
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A new tune, 'Catterline' written for the artist Joan Eardley, is a touching and powerful bow to the artist whose remarkable portraits of Glasgow 'weans' and windswept Catterline landscapes burn ever bright in Scottish consciousness. Drever describes her securing her plein air easel down against the North Sea scouring wind with a ship’s anchor - 'pretty rock 'n' roll' - he deadpans to our amusement.
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'Hunker Down' is a paean to the 'blitz spirit' of lockdown. 'Capernaum', its lyrics from a 1920s poem by Louis Spence put to music by Ed Miller features deft, syncopated almost bluesy grooving guitar work.
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And here, particular mention must go to his guitar work. He has a unique style. It's not folky, it's not rocky, it's not bluesy, it's not country, it's some sort of seamless blend of guitar techniques sublimated into a distinctive, expressive 'voice'. The instrument speaks, communicates something non-verbally without rococo twiddlings and fiddlings, saying only what has to be said. I was completely captivated by his work with the electric semi acoustic guitar - unfailingly inventive playing and a sound that had just the right amount of textural grit, spaciousness, atmosphere and zing to enchant and set adance the auditory cortex. He probably won't encounter this review, but if he does... then ... Kris... make an album of you just playing that guitar, with that rig - it'd be sensational man!
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And as we move towards closure Drever describes songwriting workshops where students are guided to pen material that reaches for more universal themes in order to touch the broadest listenership - without missing a beat he deadpans… 'so I have this song about the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919'. Very amusing.
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So ... Crail Folk Club hit the back of the net again - a magical end to the 2024 guest nights, we're all getting ready for mince pies and fun at the Christmas Party and 2025 will be opening its new-born eyes soon enough. We all continue to dream of peace and happiness and if we all sing out with enough gusto, you just never know.
Review by Callum MacLeod, photos by Peter Salkeld