Mick West & Muldoon's Picnic
Album: A Scots Chorus
Label: Alba Chruthachail
Tracks: 16
Website: http://www.ascotschorus.com

A Scots Chorus, performed at this year's Celtic Connections, is a project that seeks to re-popularise Scotland's rich tradition of chorus songs, reviving the Scottish folk music custom of communal song. Instigated by veteran Glasgow singer Mick West in collaboration with brilliant young a cappella crew Muldoon's Picnic, it presents fresh takes on 16 mostly traditional (or at least traditional-style) songs which are drawn mainly from the staples of the accepted canon of Scots musical tradition.

Mick sings lead vocal on these with all due passion, while on the chorus sections bringing in the massed voices of the five-piece Muldoon's Picnic in what might be described as "consciously chorale" harmony-rich arrangements, which additionally sporting well-upholstered, genially string-infused instrumental backdrops. The effect is at times arguably more akin to a classical recital than a communal folk singing session, but it does present a new perspective on the concept of chorus singing that, while largely entirely eschewing the raw spontaneity of a chorus of voices joining in with the song leader, nonetheless retains a credible presence and an interpretive integrity that transcends any potential charge of artificiality or unwarranted overly "cultured" ambience. It also provides a very pleasing listening experience, while inspiring the listener at home to personally engage with the songs and perhaps directly contribute, even by creating his or her own counter-harmonies at the same time. I found it all both extremely captivating and gently stimulating, although I can say I'm biased - having previously succumbed to the charms of Muldoon's Picnic at various festivals and greatly enjoyed Mick's own recordings.

Despite the occasional lushness of the instrumental lines and textures, the musicians themselves - Stewart Hardy (fiddle), Frank McLaughlin (guitar), Angus Lyon (accordion, piano) and Penny Callow (cello) - are used quite sparingly, while some of the settings are notably brave in departing from expected melodic and harmonic progressions; I'll Lay Ye Down Love is a particularly striking example, while the brooding nature of Time Wears Awa' is well brought out in the cello-rich arrangement. A comparatively leisurely treatment for the music-hall patter-song Mary Mack proves worthwhile in the context of the project, and gives a neat contrast from the breakneck pace we're used to hearing this piece taken at, while the anthemic Sae Will We Yet receives a truly sumptuous account here. As indeed, in their own way, do the handful of purely a cappella items (Tatties And Herrin' and Ay Waulkin' O especially).

In fact, long before the disc reaches its closing stages, I was completely won over by Mick's ingenuity in breathing fresh new life into these songs, and he's greatly helped by the powerful, faithful recording (production by Stewart and Frank). The closing selection, Steven Clarke's original composition Coming Home (written entirely in the spirit of the enterprise, and calling for a more inclusive Scotland), provides the most natural - and fulsome - way to end the sequence; and if that doesn't inspire you all to join in the rousing chorus in fellowship with "a' Jock Tamson's Bairns", then I'll be surprised!

This is a highly attractive disc, one which presents traditional Scots song in a genuinely different light while retaining all the basic and customary appeal of the songs themselves.

David Kidman