A name that maybe means more in the arcane world of bagpipe makers than to those who enjoy their sound, Lindsay is the inventor of the Lindsay system Scottish smallpipes, Based around the Lindsay system chanter, this he designed between 2005 and the prototype delivery in 2013/4, it and the accompanying drones being built by 3D printer. Early adopters included Malin Lewis, they amongst many to find the extended octave range of some pleasure to explore and find advantage in. Two Boats Under The Moon is Lindsay’s first nominally solo album, but he has a lasting relationship with Alasdair Roberts, contributing to his work over many decades, with the two off on tour together later this year.
This preamble is important, as the sound of the pipes is slightly nuanced as compared to the traditional instrument, with tones that can mimic, variously, saxophone and fiddle. Given the tracks here are duets, with fiddler, Roo Geddes, there are times where it becomes difficult to appreciate the boundaries between their playing. (But, before you implode your brain in trying to find the join, Lindsay plays guitar on many, most even, of them, and guitar alone, it all being recorded live in the studio.) A double album, the first set of songs are largely from Lindsay’s pen, the second from the tradition.
The first set starts with a song drawn from several sources to which Lindsay has written/adapted lyrics pertaining to parenthood. Entitled ‘When You Were Young’, you may note a credit given to a Sir Donald Lindsay. This isn’t his father, as one might otherwise suppose, but an Orcadian renaissance poet. Borrowing lines also from ‘The Silkie Of Sule Skerry’, it is a mournful ditty, Lindsay providing the vocal and guitar, leaving much the heavy lifting to Geddes’ fiddle. Lindsay has an agreeable baritone burr, slightly frayed about the edges, pitched somewhere midway between Dick Gaughan and Roddy Woomble.
‘Casuarina’ retains the same guitar and fiddle combination, and the song refers to a tree native to, and indeed time spent, on Ascension Island, and maintains the same air of plangency. A change of accompaniment for ‘Johnny Blue’s Well’, which has some lines lifted from the Renfrew poet, Hugh Caldwell. Geddes here plays piano, the only backing to Lindsay’s voice, which is bedding in nicely.
Showing an affinity for more recent writers, it is Lindsay’s son, Ryall, who is the co-credit for ‘The Meantime Song’. Or was it stemming from when he was five and tinkering with Dad’s guitar. For all that, with an authentically lowland Scots sounding tune, it could be the most ancient song here, if with a construction that, again, draws comparison with Woomble, the Idlewild frontman, during one of his solo flourishes. With the title track up next, where are these pipes, you may be wondering? Not here yet, the answer, but it is a further lilting tribute to his time in the South Atlantic. Geddes provides peak fiddle plaintive for The Fisher, ahead returning to the piano for a setting of Allan Ramsay’s ‘An Thou Were My Ain Thing’. I have to say this is perhaps my favourite of the tracks on this first disc, piano suiting so well Lindsay’s weather-beaten tones. I’m even forgiving the lack of pipes, or any feeling of being short-changed by their absence.
Over to disc two, and hoary old chestnut, ‘The Wild Rover’ gets an enticingly retro delivery. None of your funereally slow reconstructions, I had nearly forgotten what a simply effective song it can be, especially with none of the extraneous additional vocals so beloved in boisterous brewhouses. It also gives Lindsay an opportunity to let his guitar get equal billing with the fiddle of Geddes. (Ed: What about the pipes?) Pipes? Not yet, but they do finally feature, for the triad of tunes, ‘The Grinder/Hardiman the Fiddler/Fy Let Us A tae the Bridal’, and glorious they are too, from the low drone that starts them off. Well worth the wait, I might still question the wisdom of keeping them under wraps for so long.
Two more guitar, vocal and fiddle songs follow, ‘Tak It, Man, Tak It’, from Andy M. Stewarts album with Manus Lunny, and Rabbie Burns’ ‘Guidwife, Count The Lawin’. Both these ancient songs get a good airing, but, having been allowed a wee taste, I’m wanting more pipes, however raggedly well he tackles the Burns. We get ‘em back for the splendidly titled ‘Sair Plooms o’ Galashiels’. Additional notes, reproduced on the album’s Bandcamp page explain the heritage of the song and how a boiled sweet became so named. It is a grand tune, a slow march, and the two players complement each other well, blurring the boundaries between their play with, um, “aploom”.
I can’t complain about a third piano led song. Starting acapella, Lindsay applies a stately and orthodox rendition of ‘Tramps And Hawkers’, garnished then by the addition of the keyboard. Which leaves only the closer, ‘Hind Horn’, drawn out over near 15 minutes. A Child ballad, with 16 verses, that explains, in part, the length. It isn’t bad, but it does go on just a bit too long, perhaps explaining the convenience of it taking up tail of this project. Which is a shame, as it leaves the album on a slightly low note.
All things considered I like this record way more than I don’t. Some trimming may have been prudent, perhaps down to a single album. I’d keep, obviously, the pipe/fiddle instrumentals, wondering also whether some judicious overdubbing might have lightened some of the other tracks. As it stands, it may actually be more the name of Roo Geddes I am now looking out more for.
Seuras Og
Artist’s website: www.donaldwglindsay.com
‘Casuarina’ – official video:
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