Reviews
Artist:HEISK Album: HEISK
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.heisk.co.uk
Girl power is alive and well in the folk world.
Six-piece all-female trad band, HEISK was formed after noticing a shortage of representation of women in trad music, and after a number of years of writing and performing, they've finally recorded this, their self-titled, debut release. With it, they have proved that they are far more than just a trad band.
HEISK are Becca Skeoch (electro harp), Catriona Hawksworth (keys), Lauren Macdonald (drums), Megan MacDonald (accordion), Rosie Munro (fiddle), and Sally Simpson (fiddle). The six women come from all corners of Scotland, but the birth of the band came out of Glasgow's thriving music scene. The representation of women on this project goes beyond the six performers; everything from engineering, mixing and mastering, right down to the photograph for the album cover was the work of women.
Together, the band take the essence of trad music and introduces it to different approaches without it ever feeling that it's some kind of attempt to create a fusion that doesn't want to take place.
'Angus', ventures into the realms of prog (surely a bastion of male dominance even more pronounced than the trad world) building into something almost psychedelic with drum patterns that are as much part of the melody as the rhythm.
'Disco' takes the sound and beats of the 70s well enough to make the band sound like Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra, but then surprises by dropping a fiddle tune over the top. Wonderful and unexpected.
There are plenty of toe tappers among the tracks that I suspect will go down particularly well in front of a live audience, as well as a couple of slower, more laid-back pieces to offer light and shade. Festival bookers should take a listen to this album and make the call, I suspect they could be in demand after releasing this calling card.
Steve Lockley
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