Album Notes

Don Wessels,joining a trio of musicians on the Scottish island of Orkney, gently but firmly finds his instrument's place in the Tradition with this emotive set of tunes from Scotland and Ireland. Driven by Gavin Firth's muscular,
nuanced guitar, the fiddle and reeds dance guardedly, then wildly, as they fuse spirits.

On the first track you can hear them exploring, listening to each other and responding as they swoop through the tune. On the repeat, the musicians begin to play off one another, and the uncertainties of the first verse become creative collaborations.

Don has created an approach in contrast to the full-breathed, open-mouth style of the acknowledged master of Irish chromatic harmonica, Eddie Clarke. His playing is further enhanced by the adoption of the ornament vocabulary of the other standard trad instruments, particularly the uilleann pipes.

Just as the button accordion increased the number of articulations available to the melodeon player, Don's style frees the harmonica from the tyranny of its tonic-dominant-tonic restrictions. Thus the palette of ornaments is expanded, borrowing from and interpreting the Tradition with both respect and precision.


Musicians:
Don Wessels -- Chromatic harmonica
Gavin Firth -- Guitar
Bob Gibbon -- Accordion
Fionn McArthur -- Fiddle