Scott Wood Band
Upsurge
(Oak Ridge)
Piper Scott Wood’s band has been earning enthusiastic testimonies from festival organisers over the past year or two, and this first album wastes no time in showing why. Track one, Spice Of Life arrives like a hurricane and although the album reveals plenty of dynamic variations, with Wood switching to whistle at times and giving fiddler Mhairi Mackinnon room to express herself too, overall there’s strong evidence of the excitement and energy the band can create onstage. Bassist Angus Tikka and drummer Mark Scobbie are also the rhythm team for jazz-funk-folk orchestra Fat-Suit, and something of that band’s crispness and scope informs these arrangements, especially when added strings swell the sound. Part of Wood’s appeal lies in giving established tunes, including Charlie McKerron’s Bulgarian Red, new impetus as well as creating memorable melodies of his own. It’s very much music of the tradition set in a contemporary image and when guest guitarist Davie Dunsmuir takes his epic solo on McCready’s, that image becomes electric in every sense.
Rob Adams
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