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This review first appeared in The Lennox Herald 29 January 2016
Linsey Aitken and Ken Campbell pull off a musical world tour at their first Celtic Connections gig.
Like the wild geese taking off above Linsey Aitken and Ken Campbell’s home in Gartocharn on Loch Lomondside, a full house at the Glasgow Art Club on Friday 22 January caught the thermals of their fine opener Northern Winds and were transported on a musical round-the-world-tour. In the art nouveau splendour of the Art Club’s recently refurbished Gallery with its Charles Rennie Mackintosh frieze, panelled walls and breathtaking fireplaces, the accomplished couple created a comfortable and easy feel for this, their first Celtic Connections gig.
Linsey knows her way around a cello and the rich resonant tones of her arrangements brought the violin’s often shy big sister centre stage to lead and cavort with open bowing, slap base licks and melancholy harmonics. With Ken’s twelve string guitar, Northumbrian pipes and Spanish laud accompaniments and their friendly incidental chat, the pair’s many self-penned songs offered a glimpse of what they do on their holidays.
Whether taking inspiration from local archives for the rousing whaling song Dundee Bound and Ellis Island for Land of Hope, re-imagining a Pushkin poem and a Russian folk tune in Silent and Shy or recreating a day in the life of a Tuscan café owner in the ‘world premiere’ of the distinctly Czardas-esque instrumental Giovanni, Linsey and Ken offer a syncretic repertoire which never strayed far from its Scottish musical roots. This was never more effective than Linsey’s exquisite Achachrome, an instrumental inspired by the croft in Kilmartin Glen from whence Ken’s family were cleared in the 19th century. The duet melted Linsey’s cello at its harmonic and melancholic best with Ken’s Northumbrian pipes which took up the melody to create an ‘droney’ (Linsey’s words) and atmospheric combination evoking the wrench from kith and kin.
With some covers thrown in for excellent measure: their tribute to the late Michael Marra, Take me out drinking tonight, Mick West’s favourite The hills are clad in purple and a sparklingly original arrangement of Wild Rover the crowd were well pleased. Clearly well-loved and active in Gartocharn with a large local and family contingent there present, Linsey and Ken pulled off the right amount of community singing with their clever chorus handout sheets and managed easily to stay this side of sentimental with their finale Red is the Rose, the beautiful and not often heard Irish version of Loch Lomond. With that they were back on home turf at the south end of Loch Lomond and all seemed to agree that their Celtic Connections debut was a winner.
GlasgowAnni 