Album Reviews |

Peatbog Faeries

Live 7½ ( 2009 )
The Anthropologist / Invergarry Blues / The Locks and Rocks Reel / Friend of Crazy Joe / Wacko King Hako / There's a Girl Behind the Bar who thinks she's Garbo / Still Drunk in the Morning / The Dancing Feet Set / Folk Police / Caberdrone / All About Windmills

The Peatbog Faeries are an ecclectic mix who live in the Isle-Of-Skye and have won numerous awards for their virtuoso instrumental take on folk music. Peatbog Faeries have released a number of studio albums, this is their first live LP and it's in the live arena they've really made their name. Well, 'The Dancing Feet Set' is eighteen minutes long, never rests for a moment and as well as including proper, fast and brilliant celtic fiddle, includes African music, Reggae music and lord only knows what else. It's quite astonishing how easily it switches and flows. The worringly titled 'Folk Police' is one of the shorter numbers at six minutes long, yet this is just amazingly well played at such a speed even just listening at home without jumping up and down gets you out of breath. Sure, if you're not already a fan of instrumental folk combos, you're unlikely to hear anything other than bagpipes and see Riverdance, even though neither of those things are actually anywhere near Peatbog Faeries or this album. This album that reminds me of Cambridge, of Glastonbury. I haven't been fortunate enough to see Peatbog Faeries live as yet, yet, this album makes me want to. I can say no more for a live album than that. Back to 'Folk Police'? Brass parts make siren sounds at one stage. Bag-pipers fall off cliffs after having given up altogether. Good work.

'All About Windmills' closes this album, a slower tune, something very rare in Peatbog Faeries world, it seems. Everything it seems is all-out, two hundred miles an hour in a fast supercar. 'All About Windmills' is more of a country-stroll, yet we needed one. Opening cut 'The Anthropologist' has some satisfyingly melodic and funky bass parts and we needed those too. All in all not quite perfect on record yet Peatbog Faeries just can't help but impress you all the same.

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Peatbog Faeries are a contemporary instrumental folk/dance band, where the beats are as important as the fiddles - traditional folk components pushed, and boundaries reached. This is the seventh album release from the fusion band formed in 1991 and based in Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye and Scottish musical roots shine through. 'Dust' has a deliberately live sounding feel, you can hear the band members and you can feel the rhythm section and the modern keyboard and electronic touches. If you've never heard of 'Peatbog Faeries' before and stumble across them at a festival, it's well worth checking them out - they have won many awards as a live act. Tending to really work on their songs and storing them up, releasing new albums every three or four years, Peatbog Faeries, despite line-up changes for this set, are likely one of those groups that hangs around making records seemingly forever. 'Dust' is a sixty-minute long set and highlights cannot be excerpted - despite the modern sound, this is very much a pre ITunes type of album, one that's been thoughtfully sequenced and designed as a cohesive listening experience.

'The Naughty Step' features prominent 90s dance bass, pulsating throughout the track whilst the fiddle sails joyously along, proficiently and excitingly. 'Dun Beag' opens with acoustic guitar, has interesting percussive patterns and sports a melodic and meaningful fiddle solo before moving into a lovely mid-section pause to allow for the fiddles and beats to excite again throughout the second half of the track. 'Passport Panic' is a pause from the fast and fantastic tunes featured so far - well, you don't want to feel that you've been beaten over the head, end to end. This and the world-music tinged 'Spigel And Nongo' are the kind of signs this is an album with a beginning, middle and end section - not just a bunch of tunes thrown together. 'Bagpipes' pop up prominently to enliven 'Bunny For Breakfast' whilst 'Room 215' seems to me to have an African flavour to the guitar and bass lines over which the fiddle sweeps majestically through.

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