Fullsceilidh Spelemannslag
Album: 500 Sessions
Label: Spreefix
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.spreefix.com

This dynamic, if rather unwieldily-titled band were formed in 2005 by eleven of Shetland's top traditional players, including no fewer than seven fiddlers among its ranks (Lois Nicol, Ewen Thomson, Helen Whitham, Stewart Grains, Fiddlers' Bid's Ross Henderson, Drop The Box's Mark Laurenson, and Bodega & Peatbog Faeries' Ross Couper). The lineup's completed by Grant Nicol (guitar, mandolin), Peter Wood (piano), John Clark (bass) and Rock Salt & Nails' Davie Jamieson (drums).

500 Sessions follows on from the success of the outfit's debut CD Spreefix, and proves a pleasingly lively, if at times slightly stagey, sequence of tune-sets configured primarily from traditional sources but also incorporating modern compositions by Liz Carroll, Maxie Jamieson, Mike Vass and Martin Tourish (inter alia) with a couple of tunes by band members Ewen and John tossed in for good measure.

Anyone who's into the delights of Shetland fiddling will enjoy the music on this disc, although the rhythm section can feel a mite relentless, even redundant on occasion it must be said. I find the music on this disc by turns invigorating and merely efficient, and like any all-instrumental disc it can prove a touch too much for one continuous listen, reaping better rewards by being paused halfway through or reprogrammed (although it's hard to find fault with the sequence as given, for tempos and moods are sufficiently varied to take in gentle waltzes, Danish polkas and more inward-looking pieces amidst the expected reel-sets).

A plus point too is that the intelligent arrangements give other instruments than just fiddles a good look-in, with tenor banjo (Ewen) coming to the fore on the penultimate, old-timey-flavoured set (Redbird), for all that it was inspired by the fiddle playing of Dirk Powell (this track turns out to be a late highlight of the disc as a whole).

David Kidman