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Shooglenifty
The Arms Dealer's Daughter
$16.99
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fRoots says: Something of a watershed album for the splendid Scots band as they unveil their new line-up with their fifth album - the first on their own label. In come Australian multi-instrumentalist Luke Plumb and bass guitarist Quee Macarthur, who's formerly played with Mouthmusic, Sunhoney and Capercaillie and do their bit on an album that, if you'll excuse the hideous Americanism, really rocks. But not in a crass way. James Mackintosh is a take-no-prisoners drummer, but there's lots of other things at the party veering enticingly off into various inviting nooks and crannies to avoid the familiar chest-beating pitfalls of conventional folk-rockery. There's a spicy Far Eastern vibe going on, for one thing, quite apart from the liberal supply of samples and programming which has always put the Shoogle monster at the cutting edge of a particularly infectious form of Celtic/ roots/ dance music. A wonderful guitar riff worthy of Keith Richard himself opens The Reid St Sofa, but just as you imagine they must be about to give it the full rock 'n' roll welly, in come the flying mandolin and fiddle and we're away into another dance mode entirely. Angus Grant's fiddle playing is superb throughout and Garry Finlayson's nimble banjo is everywhere, but I especially love Mackintosh's drumming. At times it seems almost divorced from everything else going on, yet far from jarring, it opens new windows that are fully exploited by a tough production job. They sashay from rumba to polka - Maxine's Polka is a particularly inspiring track, weaving in some nimble fingered African guitar and a belting horn section - and then start dishing out the samples in earnest on A Fistful Of Euro. And if you get tired of dancing, they play a really beautiful slow tune, Carboni's Farewell. If the huge range of styles and influences brand it as experimental then that's merely because so little has been done with sound in this area and their vision and appetite for risk never gets in the way of the basic precepts of the album - to have fun. It's a good-time dance album that clambers effortlessly across continents and traditions to get there. Grab it in that spirit and you won't be disappointed. - Colin Irwin |
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