Laura Wilkie - Vent

Everyone loving some quality fiddle music will surely know the name of Laura Jane Wilkie, one of the driving forces behind the acclaimed Kinnaris Quintet. She recently released her first solo album Vent, for which she gathered a number of old and new tunes and a line up including Ian Carr, Sarah Hayes and Alice Allen.

The overall serene mood of the entire work is perfectly captured in the first track, the beautiful I Am Sad in the Braes of the Glen, and by the more lyrical Lift Up My Love that follows it with its more lilting pace and delicate guitar and piano passages. With its unexpected experimental opening vocals and its lyrical melody, A New Story provides a perfect bridge to the second part of the release.

This latter starts with the impressionistic opening of A Man Ran Off and proceeds through atmospheres influenced by minimalistic music through the bright waulking theme Albatross and the syncopated The Sailor Has Good Chat towards the majestic closing track Try, perhaps the most remarkable on the whole album.

Wilkie’s fiddle is the core of every single track, but its role in the spotlight does not overshadow the other components of the line up. They float around each other, exchanging roles and themes, moving sinuously as a unit and creating refined and subtle harmonies.

As a result, the soundscapes they create are much more than the sum of the single elements’ contributions; and this is, together with the choice of the material, the main strong point of this release.

Vent is more than a debut solo album, it is a tapestry of sounds where tradition meets innovation, a highly recommended listen for both the folk aficionados and newcomers to the genre.