Routes to Roots, EIF music review: 'funky'

Routes to Roots ★★★★

The Hub

Fiddler and composer Catriona Price’s exuberant, occasionally bewildering cross-cultural hooley, involving musicians from her native Orkney, Argentina and Senegal, did indeed spark lively cultural exchange, opening with the laid back Por donde debo ir, from Argentinan duo Lohdóh – singer-guitarist Noelia Recalde with percussionist Jonatan Szer.

Price took the stage with members of the band El Guapo on drums, electric bass and guitar as well as pianist Tom Gibbs, her fiddle tune, Venus as a Boy, amplified into old-fashioned folk rock, followed by forceful delivery of her poem setting Venus as a Boy.

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A collaborative composition was Daughters of the Deep, merging Orcadian legend with the West African folklore of alto saxophonist Camila George. Opening with a fanfare on conch shell, then fiery fiddle and sax, it worked up a groove that suggested that these merfolk must have been funky.

Singer-songwriter Kris Drever, meanwhile, delved into his repertoire for the wistful If Wishes Were Horses and joined Lohdóh for a jaunty co-written number, alternating verses in English and Spanish, while from Buenos Aires, El Guapo delivered the catchy Wait for Me as well as a rocker about being pursued by police in Miami. On-stage personnel swelled further with members of Senegal’s Orchestra Baobab, also adding tenor sax and electric guitar.

Following a carnivalesque climax of steamy funk, tenor and alto saxes flaring, to step out into an Edinburgh smoored with haar felt quite bizarre. Jim Gilchrist

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