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The Herald Review 15th June 2010
Duncan Chisholm: Canaich (Copperfish)
Published on 15 Jun 2010
Rob Adams
Sadness and joy from award-winning fiddler
FIDDLER Duncan Chisholm’s previous album, Farrar, deservedly won the Album of the Year prize at the Scots Trad Music Awards in 2008, and its successor could well be in contention this year. Chisholm is a beautiful player with a real vocal quality in his slow airs. His soulfully bereft reading of the opening I Horo’s Na Hug Oro Eile is like Gaelic singing without the words, and there’s poetry in his fiddle and piano take on Phil Cunningham’s The Gentle Light That Wakes Me. Canaich isn’t all sadness and wistfulness, though. There’s swagger and jubilation, too, and sensitive imagination in accompaniments such as the simple whistle “choir” on Isaac’s Welcome To The World, the soft brass crooning behind Chisholm’s deeply expressive Craskie and The Desert Road’s subtly controlled electric elements. I could live without the repeated use of dull percussion in music that has a strong natural dance rhythm but while that can be a mildly annoying distraction, it doesn’t detract from Chisholm’s gifts as a musician and composer.
Duncan Chisholm – Canaich
by NEIL on 11 JUNE, 2010
Duncan Chisholm has released Canaich, the second instalment in his Strathglass triology, on Copperfish Records. This follows on from Farrar, the award winning first album in the trilogy, inspired by the highland landscapes populated by his ancestors.
In 1988 Duncan Chisholm was a founder member of Wolfstone; within two years the band had become a full time job and one of Scotland’s most talented musicians was at the start of an impressive and productive career. Duncan’s first solo album, Redpoint, was released in 1997; a homage to the great poet Sorley MacLean, taking him in a very different direction from Wolfstone. Among his many projects, Duncan has also worked extensively with Julie Fowlis, making a valuable contribution to her live and studio performances.
Canaich’s brief opener, I Horo’s Na Hug Oro Eile, is soft, melancholy, and comes out of the mist like a voice of the ancients.
Camhanaich air Machair / Captain Carswell introduces James MacKintosh’s percussion and Duncan’s light, lively touch, reminiscent of Alasdair Fraser, is given rein in a pair of tunes by Donald Shaw and Willie Lawrie. Tony Byrnes’ gentle guitar carries the pace expertly throughout.
 Duncan’s first self-composed tune on the CD,Craskie, is a sweet; light air in which he visits the area of his family’s farming origins. The pace quickens with Isaacs Welcome To The World, a fiery tune to celebrate an important arrival. There’s another welcome arrival in the form of Rick Taylor’s brass harmonies; soothing and understated behind the fiddle, guitar and percussion. Iain MacFarlane’s whistle plays around with the gentle brass and the full effect is pure joy.
Phil Cunningham’s beautiful ode to the sunrise, The Gentle Light That Wakes Me, mellows the pace again. Hamish Napier joins on piano and, I think, Patsy Reid on viola (someone put me right if I’m wrong!). The viola makes a fine partner to Duncan’s low, breathy fiddle style. Chasing Daylight is livelier and Ali Hutton’s whistle evokes a westward journey building to a full company (strings, brass, percussion & keyboards) rendition of this uplifting melody by Gary Innes.
We’re returned to Gealdom in the traditional lament, Mo Run Geal Og. There are so many versions and variations of this classic lament; it’s refreshing to hear the simple melody given space in an instrumental rendition.
Michael McGoldrick’s The Desert Road picks up the pace again. Rhythmic, and injected with some dynamism by Ross Hamilton’s electric guitar and bass.
Caoinradh Johnny Sheain Jeaic, incorporating Gordon Duncan’s beautiful tear-jerker, Lorient Mornings, returns to Duncan’s haunting, low sound.
Loch Mullardoch / The Oblique Jig starts off with a return to Chisholm country then treats us to Niall Vallely’s minimalist jig. The Exile Reels making their highly energetic way from across the Atlantic are Mike Katz’s The Head Roaster and The Last Mile by Mark Stewart; with the latter given a resonant bass foundation, a gorgeous Gaelic voiceover courtesy of Cliar’s Ingrid Henderson, and a stirring combined fiddle performance by Duncan Chisholm and Iain MacFarlane.
Mar A Tha closes the album as it began, in an ancient, melancholy voice; soothing and sublime.
It’s also worth mentioning the album’s artwork. Jackie MacKenzie has produced a series of paintings evocative of John Lowrie Morrison’s bold, wild highland colours. The combination of dramatic, tempestuous landscapes, swirling seas and the contrasting softness of snowdrops beside fallen rubble (which surely carries a message) compliment the spirit of this album beautifully.
Although Canaich feels mellower, less complex than Farrar, Duncan’s move to the west in his geographical trilogy is just as wonderful a collection of highland music. His soft fiddle tone adds a haunting voice to the music and the inclusion of two other fiddle players in the album is a clear indication of Duncan Chisolm’s justified confidence in his own music and the direction in which he takes it.
Folk Radio UK
www.folkradio.co.uk
Review of Canaich for "Irish Music Magazine" by Alex Monaghan
This album is the second in Duncan's Strathglass trilogy, showing an altogether gentler side of Wolfstone's fiddler than some people might expect. Duncan's work with Ivan Drever and his four previous solo albums demonstrate the delicacy and sweetness of highland music which exists in parallel with Wolfstone's rock band sound. Farrar, the first part of Duncan's trilogy, was a truly magical album full of beautiful melodies. Canaich is simpler perhaps, but no less striking. Starting with a soulful Gaelic melody, Duncan's exquisite fiddle dominates this musical landscape. Donald Shaw's slinky slip-jig Camhanaich air Machair joins the pipe march Captain Carswell to form one of the livelier tracks here. Isaac's Welcome to the World is a rather more rumbustuous slip-jig, veering towards Wolfstone territory with whistle and brass harmonies.Craskie, another of Duncan's compositions, sets a much gentler mood: a sweet and captivating air. The third Chisholm tune on this CD is yet another slip-jig, a sauntering lyrical melody named for Loch Mullardoch and followed by Niall Vallely's punchy Oblique Jig.
The same easy swing infuses Chasing Daylight and Desert Road, by Gary Innes and Mike McGoldrick in turn. Other great contemporary composers whose work gets the Chisholm treatment on Canaich include Allan MacDonald, Phil Cunningham and the much missed Gordon Duncan. Californian MIke Katz and Canada's Mark Stewart provide the tunes for The Exile Reels, probably the most up-tempo track on this recording, a gloriously energetic piece of fiddling. For me, Duncan's interpretations of slow traditional airs are still the highlights: the well-known haunting song Mo Run Geal Og, the brooding Illean Aigh, and the final brief but sublime Mar a Tha. In the playing of highland music, fast or slow, new or old, there's few who can match this man. Canaich is a concentrated dose of Duncan Chisholm's music, a delight for fiddle fans, and another testament to one of Scotland's finest musicians: www.DuncanChisholm.com is the place to find out more.
Scotland on Sunday Review 30th May 2010
Canaich ****
Few fiddlers match Duncan Chisholm's expressive feel for a Highland air, or his relaxed, accurate phrasing in the dance music. That he can put a match to the heather in Wolfstone shouldn't deny the historic, traditional lineage of his playing. This second album in his Strathglass trilogy brings together a few old tunes, a few self-penned, and the rest from the rich abundance of contemporary composition. Ten of Scotland's leading instrumentalists underscore this quality recording.
Norman Chalmers
Duncan Chisholm at Celtic Connections
Review by Catherine Keegan
31st January 2010
 Duncan Chisholm has been one of our favorite artists, since we first saw him in Wolfstone, playing a fantastic cutaway fiddle. His solo work on “Redpoint,” “Door of Saints,” and this year’s MG ALBA Scot’s trad album of the year “Farrar” has been featured many times on KZYX&Z.
Tonight he was joined by Tony Byrne on guitar, Allan Hendersonon fiddle and the incomparable Phil Cunningham on keyboards, cittern, accordion and penny whistle. The effect was
wonderful.
Chisholm and Cunningham began with the gorgeous, heart-rending air “Lorient Mornings,” then Byrne’s guitar sneaked in to signal a mood shift as the tune changed to the upbeat Angus Grant masterpiece “250 to Vigo.” The tune built energy, and reached a crescendo when Henderson joined in. That first set demonstrated Chisholm’s thoughtful method of putting tunes together, as well as his confident, emotional playing style.
When the tunes weren’t playing with your heart and soul, Chisholm held forth with an easy patter and a lot of humour. The evening was pure genius right down to the final set, which might have had the unlikely name of “The Knockard Elf/ Turbo Shandy”, and had the entire hall of St. Andrews ringing with the sound of stomping feet. For the encore, Chisholm and Cunningham played Phil’s lovely air “The Gentle Light that Wakes Me,” calming the audience down enough to go into the loud Glasgow night.
As usual for St Andrew’s, the sound was nearly perfect, allowing us to fully enjoy a superb performance by gifted musicians. A magical night that we will long remember.
Farrar Review by David Kidman
FARRAR – Duncan Chisholm (Copperfish Records CPFCD. 003)
The fiery fiddler from Wolfstone has on his solo ventures thus far (Redpoint and The Door Of Saints) shown an altogether more mellow and relaxed side to his artistry, and album number three leans even more in this direction with six out of its ten tracks built around slow airs, a musical form of which he’s proved a consummate master. Compositions come from the pens of established writers (Gordon Duncan, Fred Morrison, Michael McGoldrick), topped up with a couple by Duncan himself. And Farrar turns out to be as magical as the mountain which inspired it, producing a succession of atmospheric tunes-as-tone-pictures. Duncan’s magnificent playing is so at peace with its inspiration, yet its sheer silken eloquence can also be slightly deceptive in that it can sometimes conceal the depth of emotion within the notes and the phrasing. There’s a wonderfully unforced sense of flow to Duncan’s playing, a classical kind of poise allied to a miraculous control of line. Take his majestic rendition of Alasdair’s Tune (composed by Charlie McKerron), or the sublimely tender and haunting A’ Mhairead Og. On the graceful and poignant Lorient Mornings, Duncan doubletracks a viola part and Phil Cunningham provides a supremely sensitive piano accompaniment. Other supporting musicians – Kris Drever (acoustic guitar), Ross Hamilton (bass, electric guitar) and Martin O’Neill (bodhrán) – help Duncan to realise his vision, and such is the high quality of the recording (all credit to Brian McNeill here) that all contributions are given a credible perspective while allowing Duncan’s own playing to bloom and shine; for example, the glistening tones of The Hill Of The High Byre are a model of restrained accompaniment yet add considerably to the atmosphere and impact of the contours of the tune. On the more animated selections such as Duncan’s own reel The Farley Bridge and the Galician-inflected 250 To Vigo (composed by Shooglenifty’s Angus Grant), the tune loses absolutely nothing in forward momentum while Duncan’s trademark unhurried lyricism still permeates the playing. Throughout, Duncan’s musicianship is miraculous, outstandingly stylish and eloquent, and this is a significantly classy record which I can’t praise highly enough.
Inverness Courier article 16 Jan 2009
Published: 16 January, 2009
GLASGOW will get a lesson in the art of Highland fiddle playing as part of the city’s 16th annual Celtic Connections music festival, which gets under way this weekend.
Among the local artists making the journey down the A9 will be two of Scotland’s leading fiddle players Duncan Chisholm and Bruce MacGregor.
They, together with MacGregor’s Blazin’ Fiddles bandmate Iain MacFarlane from Glenfinnan, will be paying tribute to their fiddle teacher Donald Riddell, who farmed at South Clunes seven miles west of Inverness.
The three fiddlers have already recorded a tribute to their old teacher in the album "A Highland Fiddler", but the album was predated by a couple of live shows for the Highland Festival.
Now "A Highland Fiddler" is making its Glasgow debut at St Andrew’s in the Square in just over a week on Saturday 24th January and is already a sell out.
"The one thing we would all say we got from Donald was a pretty good idea of technique," said Chisholm who was a pupil of Riddell for eight years.
"He wasn’t a very strict man, he was a very caring teacher, but you had to do it his way up until the point when he decided to let you fly the nest. I remember him saying: ’You’ve spent the last eight years playing like Donald Riddell. Now you’ve got to go and play like Duncan Chisholm.’"
Riddell died in 1992, by which time Chisholm was already making a name for himself with the Celtic rock band Wolfstone. Chisholm does not know if his former mentor ever heard Wolfstone, but does not think Riddell would not have disapproved of his pupil’s new direction.
"Ultimately he was a musical man and I’m sure he would have seen it as a step forward for the music. Although he was a strict disciplinarian about the music, he had a very open mind as well," Chisholm added.
Many more of Riddell’s former pupils continue to play, demonstrating his continuing influence on fiddle playing in the Highlands and beyond.
Chisholm calculates that Riddell was seeing around 50 students a week when he was a pupil, with some of them also going on to musical careers, such as Inverness fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers of the trio Fribo, who released her debut solo album last year.
One important aspect of Riddell’s teaching, Chisholm believes, was that his music was grounded in the traditions of both west and east Scotland.
One of Riddell’s own teachers was Alexander Grant Battan, the best friend of the great Aberdeenshire fiddler James Scott Skinner, but Riddell was also influenced by the West Coast tradition and pipe playing. A piper himself, he served as Pipe Major for the Lovat Scouts throughout World War II.
Though he appreciates the grounding in the fiddle technique that learning the Scott Skinner repertoire of strathspeys and reels gave him, Chisholm confessed: "I was always more into the pipe marches and Gaelic airs. That meant more to me than the tunes of Scott Skinner, but I was lucky to get both of them in the teaching."
Another plus for Chisholm about next weekend’s concert is that unlike most of his other musical outlets, it allows him to play along with fellow fiddlers.
"I can play with Bruce and Iain and get totally different things from playing with either of them," he said.
"I just love playing with both of them and it’s always a pleasure."
This will not be Chisholm’s only Celtic Connections date.
On Thursday 29th January he will take his regular role in backing Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis on a double bill with Canadian band La Bottine Souriante.
"It’s Julie’s first full gig in her own right in the main auditorium in the Royal Concert Hall. It’s a big step for her and the perfect venue as well, so I’m really looking forward to it," Chisholm added.
Looking further ahead, Chisholm will accompany Fowlis on a trip to Paris next month, but will also be coming closer to home in April on his annual Scottish tour with singer Ivan Drever.
The tour will also give him a chance to promote solo album "Farrar", recently named Album of the Year at the Scottish Trad Awards, though surprisingly given the eight year gap between it and its predecessor, "The Door of Saints", Chisholm is already thinking about a follow up.
"It’s almost a year since I recorded ’Farrar’. Throughout that period I was thinking what I wanted to do next," he said.
"The album was very traditional and just exactly what I wanted to put out, but I don’t want to put out the same album as it were. I’ve got very definite ideas about the next album and want to start working on it straight away."
2009 is a significant year for Chisholm as it marks Wolfstone’s 20th anniversary, though he expects the big celebration for the band will come next year, Wolfstone will be busier at festivals in Spain and Italy in 2009.
"I have the perfect balance in the music that I play," Chisholm commented.
"My solo career is very important, with Julie I get to play beautiful music with a great band and Wolfstone is my first love, but I get so many different musical things out of all three. There’s never a dull moment."
ROCKnREEL Sep/Oct 2008
Duncan Chisholm ***** Farrar
If you want to talk about classical influences in traditional music- and I do, so hard luck, then look no further than this wonderful third solo album by Duncan Chisholm. Like its predecessors, it is some way removed from his work with Wolfstone, but you have to chill out sometimes.
The band: Kris Drever and Phil Cunningham (who share arranging credits with Chisholm), Martin O’Neill and Ross Hamilton speaks for itself as do the composers. Duncan draws on: Gordon Duncan, Michael McGoldrick, Angus Grant, Stephen Saint and Charlie McKerron.
I suppose we must describe the ten pieces as "Pastoral" in that they relate to place and landscape. It may not be the perfect term if it conjures up only mellow mist-over-the-glens images but it will do. There is some of that - the opening "Nuair Rios Mi Leam Fhin" fulfils the role perfectly - but there are also sparkling, bubbling tunes like "The 303" and "Glenuig Bay"
Dai Jeffries
The Living Tradition Aug/Sep 2008
Review by Richard Brown; Duncan Chisholm Farrar
Duncan Chisholm’s reputation as a master of the fiddle slow air has grown steadily since the release of his classic 1997 album "Redpoint".
His new release Farrar, inspired by a mountain he knows and loves well, shows just why. Many fiddle players these days can play slow airs eloquently, and with a beautiful sound. Duncan has all of this, but also the rarer gift of being able to get right to the heart of a tune, and communicate the emotion behind it in what seems a totally natural way. His music (at any pace) has an unforced flow which draws the listener in.
Slow airs take centre stage on Farrar, featuring on six of the ten tracks. Duncan’s playing has rightly been described as taking the listener to places of great beauty and peace. Here this pervading feeling is tinged with different emotions on individual tunes, from the aching poignancy of Gordon Duncan’s Lorient Mornings to the tenderness of A’ Mhairead Og, both featuring Phil Cunningham’s sensitive piano accompaniment.
The remaining tunes, modern compositions by Duncan himself and the likes of Fred Morrison and Michael McGoldrick, are mainly played at a relaxed mid-tempo to complement the feeling established by the airs, with Kris Drever, Martin O’Neill and Ross Hamilton providing a suitably subtle rhythmic backing. The recording (by Brian McNeill) does them full justice while still letting us hear every nuance of Duncan’s playing.
Duncan has said that his aim in Farrar is to take the listener to the mountain, and atmospheric photographs of it in the sleeve booklet certainly reinforce the mood he creates. But in the end it is the music which speaks for itself, and it carries a quality and depth of feeling which will keep listeners returning to it for many years.
Music Road Review 1st September 2008
by Kerry Dexter
Duncan Chisholm
Farrar
 Duncan Chisholm is also from the north of Scotland and one can fairly hear the wind and sea in the music here. Some of it is original music, there are Gordon Duncan tunes set over to the fiddle, a piece composed by flute player Michael McGoldrick and one by piper Fred Morrison. It’s been a while since  Chisholm’s last solo album -- he’s been working with singer and writer Ivan Drever, among other things, and touring with Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis. It’s great to hear him on his own, in a set that opens up the ideas of mist and mysteries. Standout cuts include that Fred Morrison tune, Farewell to Uist, paired with McGoldrick’s Glenuig Bay, and Chisholm’s own The Farley Bridge.
Classic Rock Society Review for Farrar August 2008
Duncan Chisholm is best known as the fiddle and frontman of Wolfstone, the band he formed back in 1989. This third solo album is chock full of beautifully evocative instrumental pieces, mainly gentle and dreamy landscapes, and mixes traditional music with some inspired new material. As you might expect Chisholm’s fiddle and viola take centre stage on a quite exquisite piece of work. SW
"The Inverness Courier" review 1 August 2008
"Classy new album from Wolfstone’s Duncan was well worth the wait"
If it has taken a while for Chisholm to follow up his last solo album, the excellent "Door of Saints", I think we can forgive him.
After all he is a busy guy, not only with his continuing commitment to Wolfstone and touring partnership with Ivan Drever but as sideman to equally talented associates from Scottish folk’s amiable godfather, Phil Cunningham to rising star Julie Fowlis.
While Wolfstone, metaphorically speaking, allows him to let his hair down and rock out, Chisholm’s solo outlets are a return to his traditional roots and provide a better opportunity to show off the sensitivity of his playing, providing especially sympathetic touches to the beautiful gaelic airs "Mallai Chroch Shli" and "A Mairead Og", but that is not to say this is a swing free zone. Far from it. There are certainly tunes to get your toes tapping if not your head banging.
Fine a tune writer as Chisholm is, witness the snappy "Farley Bridge" or the gentler "Hill of the High Byre", he is content to provide just three original tunes for this album and for a fiddler seems very generous to the piping fraternity with tunes from Fred Morrison, Michael McGoldrick, Stevie Saint and the late Gordon Duncan, as well as his fiddling counterparts Angus R Grant and Charlie McKerron.
Chisholm has chosen as well in his material as in his collaborators, who include the aforementioned Phil Cunningham and Ivan’s son Kris, who complement perfectly Chisholm’s classy and mature playing.
"The Scotsman" review 3rd July 2008
Duncan Chisholm; Farrar *****
ADMIRERS of fiddler Duncan Chisholm’s solo projects generally need to be patient souls, but it is usually worth the wait when they do finally arrive. Farrar is no exception, and is well up to the high benchmark set by Redpoint and The Door of Saints. Slow airs are a speciality, and he reaffirms his mastery of the art on Gordon Duncan’s lovely Lorient Mornings as well as several plaintive traditional tunes. His immaculate phrasing and finely judged rhythmic sense is displayed to equally impressive effect on the more up-tempo material, including Fred Morrison’s lilting Farewell to Uist, Angus Grant’s 250 to Vigo and his own The 303. There is not a weak moment or superfluous note on the album, and he is supported by a fine cast of friends that includes Phil Cunningham, Kris Drever and former Wolfstone band mate Ross Hamilton.
KENNY MATHIESON
Highland News Review for Farrar June 21st 2008
Farrar *****
Fiddler Duncan Chisholm has spent half his lifetime developing his playing style and his solo albums have become as much of a pleasure as his work with Wolfstone, Ivan Drever, Julie Fowlis and his own compositions.
To put it bluntly, the man’s got a lot of strings to his bow.
If you could choose just one album this year- whether you’re a rocker, folkie, jazz buff or electro kid - Farrar should be it.
Opening track, the traditional Nuair bhios mi leam fhin, lulls you back in your life with big, beautiful soulful notes that offer an invisible massage. Easing you into the company of a violin with a unique voice, the opener shunts you off with an unexpected end note.
But soon enough, you’re into mulling over the kind of lyrics you would need to live up to The Farley Bridge, a tune from Duncan’s own pen.
Gordon Duncan’s L’orient Mornings adds a more exotic feel, as does Tengo De Xubir Al Puertu.
Alongside many traditional tunes, the album also offers a reworking of Shooglenifty’s popular 250 to Vigo which works brilliantly at a more relaxed pace. The track also offers a beautifully judged mere frosting of piano from Phil Cunningham, just one of the friends - Kris Drever, Martin O’ Neill, Ross Hamilton and even the short spoken Gaelic from Tearlach MacFarlane in Mallai Chroch Shli - that feature on the album.
Bet you can’t hear the CD once through without re-pressing that play button!
BLAS: DUNCAN CHISHOLM’S KIN (Glen Urquhart Village Hall, Drumnadrochit, 4 September 2007)
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