Barbara Dymock
Album: Hilbert's Hotel
Label: Liftfire
Tracks: 15
Website: www.barbaradymock.com/

Barbara Dymock was a founder member of Scottish folk band Coelbeg, well the first two versions at least and for a period was also a member Fair Game an all women accapella group, whilst still studying at Uni.

After Uni, her music career ran pretty much parallel with a career in medicine. Juggling two careers is normally possible, but throw a family into the mix and it all becomes very difficult indeed. Music became the casualty, well in a professional sense at least, moving to the hobby category.

The thing is about families is that they grow older and less dependent, allowing Barbara to make the move back to recording and playing lived dates. The first fruits of that return came via a duo Fon A Bhord, from where she released the Lift album, but more recently has come her solo debut.

"Hilbert's Hotel" is said solo debut. I've been known to say that a truly classic traditional album is a history lesson, a geography lesson and a murder, this album more than ticks all those boxes and to it you can add, with real vocal dexterity.

The quality of Barbara Dymock's voice is such that you feel this album could work almost as well with no instrumental accompaniment, but I'm glad she didn't go down that route or we would have missed out on some excellent playing to boot.

This is an album that seems to be performed with consummate ease, but not one that takes anything for granted, you can feel her love for the songs chosen for the album as clearly as you can hear each syllable she chooses top sing.

It's an album that reflects much of how attitudes have changed to things over the years, death and politics being two good examples that she covers over the course of the tracks. It's great to have Barbara back and if this is the standard that she's set herself, hopefully the time to next album will be a wee bit shorter.

Neil King