(2022) Niteworks - A' Ghrian              


Review:
The Skye band Niteworks have carved out a niche where traditional Scottish melodies balance with electronic beats, rhythms and patterns. Their last album, 2018’s Air Fàir An Là, doubled down on the combination of Gaelic song and electronic textures to mesmerising effect. Now the journey goes a stage deeper: the music more widescreen, more urgent, more cinematic; the songs now in Scots and English as well. The album’s title is Gaelic for “the sun”, and the sound is less nocturnal than before, as if awakening into a clearer but less frenetic world. The opener, “Each-Uisge”, is a close cousin to the band’s soundtrack for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay fireworks from 2018. It begins with declarative electronic piano chords from Innes Strachan over an arpeggiated synth pattern, with the distant sound of sirens; then a bagpipe melody from Allan MacDonald and drums that clatter a moment late as if Ruairidh Graham has dashed in and is still pulling off his coat. The music pauses for a moment before regenerating into a deep-bass pulse and radiophonic sine-waves. The pipes and Christopher Nicolson’s bass pull it all together: a four-minute Scots cyber-noir soundtrack. “Gura mise tha fo Èislein” has a lopsided steady thump: vocals from Ellen MacDonald couple the insistent bounce of a waulking song with the steady build of a rave. The harmonies of her vocal trio, Sian, frequent collaborators with Niteworks, come to the fore later on “Teannaibh Dluth” against what sounds like a church organ and a clatter of dry sticks. West Lothian singer Hannah Rarity performs the traditional “Gloomy Winter” straight, with the merest scuffle of drum machine. “’Neath the brae the burnie jouks and ilka thing is cheery O,” she sings ironically cheerily, before the keyboards ascend into a brightening spring sky. The instrumental “Guns of Ajaccio” has a Napoleonic implacability. “Bumpth” is a set of syncopated collisions matching its onomatopoeic title. Of the other ballads, Beth Malcolm’s “John Riley” is a tale of a missing mariner with a bassline like an engine room full of diesel. From the Isle of Mull, Alasdair Whyte brings an immense sound to “Thèid Mi Lem Dheòin”, his voice channelling centuries of song. The contemplative title track closes the album: it is sung by Kathleen MacInnes, from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, to a backing that at times sounds like little more than clay pots struck with twigs; the singing part welcome, part benediction, part summoning, its final fragments completely unaccompanied. — FT





Track List:
1.Each-Uisge 04:04
2.Gura mise tha fo Èislein  03:32
3.Gloomy Winter 03:52
4.Guns of Ajaccio 04:56
5.John Riley  06:09
6.Old Ghost's Waltz 03:15
7.Thèid mi lem Dheòin  04:25
8.Bumpth 03:25
9.Teannaibh Dlùth  04:35
10.A' Ghrian  03:19


Media Report:
Genre: electronic, folk
Country: Scotland / UK
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits


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