Marit And Rona
Album: Turas
Label: Watercolour Music
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.maritandrona.co.uk

Blending music from different parts of the world together has always been a tricky task to do. Like when blending the best flavours in a meal you don't want to risk getting the mixture wrong so that any one flavour over powers the other or la flavour gets left bland. With music related to country and culture this is even more difficult as there is history and heritage that you are have to equally divide in the music.

Marit and Rona take the different flavours of their homeland cultures of Scottish Tunes and Scandinavian Tunes and present a fine meal for us to all enjoy. Each track is carefully crafted with a variety of Scandinavian and traditional Celtic instruments to really blend together the best of what these different music styles have to offer. The vocals too are very impressive as the particularly catchy track 'Tobar Tobar' hints at for a small section.

Each track on the album 'Turas', which itself means 'to take turns' in both Swedish and Gaelic (Brilliant.) is mystical and enchanting. The real selling point for me is how much variety there is even within each track. Each set explores different tempos and styles of sound to give us more minisodes of the different cultures spread out into an album.

Both ladies have beautiful voices which are spread nicely over the album, which 'Bodach' being a particular favourite as we get a beautiful vocal section of both ladies speaking in their traditional tongues which makes for an amazing effect.

There is a lot of choice on this album as each track is so different from the next, so even if you don't like one part of one track the desire to keep listening will always be there as that could all change at a moment's notice.

Paul Rawcliffe