Tag: Mary Louise Napier

Canny chaps, these Napier boys, each ploughing separate furrows across the field of Scottish traditionally derived music. Brothers Hamish and Findlay, each first came to notice with Back Of The Moon, a vibrant Scots tradfolk band, based upon the Isle of Arran, with a trio of albums well worth seeking out. With Hamish adept on keyboards and flute and Fin on guitar, the band also included the fiddle and vocals of Gillian Frame and, in later years, the redoubtable Ali Hutton on bagpipes.  

Fin has subsequently matched a solo career with time in The Magpie Arc, the Anglo-Scottish power quintet, whilst Hamish has made an acclaimed series of releases, each based on separate aspects of the Scottish landscape and history. So, following The River, The Railway and The Woods, The Hill is number 4 in a planned set of 5. (The Sky should follow in due course.) He is also Duncan Chisholm’s current go-to for piano accompaniment, with Chisholm one of an A team of musicians represented here, along with Seonaid Aitken and her celebrated string quartet, Ross Ainslie and James Lindsay (Breabach) also present and correct. 

Napier describes the album as “a suite of new airs and melodies, inspired by the hills and braes of the river Spey, and its tributaries’, acting also as ‘an informal study of native Gaelic hill terms, peculiar to the region”. Phew, if that sounds learned, and it is, relax, the inclusiveness is sufficient to merely allow your ears to do the work necessary. There is a (very) detailed booklet, explaining both the tunes, the geography and the etymology. This isn’t a compulsory read, but I would add also an interesting one, as you listen to the 20 tunes, spread over a generous 76 minutes.  

The set is split into 4 sections, each approaching the eponymous hill, or hills, from a different direction. SW side, as in southwest is the first, made up of ‘Wind’, ‘Water’, ‘Arctic’, ‘Crag’ and ‘Moor’, discreet movements that embrace their titular attributes. ‘Wind’ is a rousing overture of flute, piano and strings, uplifting and joyous, especially in a quieter middle section, where the bass of James Lindsay weaves alongside ripples of Napier’s piano. Ending, applicably, with the sound of an impending gale, ‘Water’ starts with a trickling burn, before doleful low level drones from the cello of Su-a Lee, aka Mrs Napier, which then become up a wistful euphony, dancing then with her husband’s flute. The string quartet provide additional ballast, with Patsy Allen and Megan Henderson’s respective viola and fiddle joining Lee’s cello and Aitken, also on fiddle. 

Sarah Ann Summers also features across the album, on Hardanger fiddle, and it is her and Napier’s flute that combine for a strathspey, ‘Arctic’, ahead the rest of the ensemble joining, Fraser Stone’s percussion to the fore. ‘Crag’ is a more thoughtful piece, a low air, on bamboo flute. And captured birdsong, then adding a full orchestral shimmer of added embellishment, and the first delicious hint of Ross Ainslie’s background bagpipes. ‘Moor’ closes this first grouping, and is a delicate revel in the pleasure of being outside and at one with nature, with Lindsay and Stone adding their sensitive rhythm section. 

Time for the view from the southeast, and, mindful of how hard it is to distill all these instrumental sounds into prose, rather than a dot by dot exposition, will now try and stick to highlights. I think, or hope, you can get the gist of the sort of soundscape that Napier is aiming for, and, for ‘Summit’, ‘Foothills’, ‘Peaks’, ‘Seasons’ and ‘Passes’, the template is broadly the same, as Napier and co. distill centuries of Scottish tradition into new melodies, that weave seamlessly into older and more familiar tuneage . Ainslie adds the glorious lowing of his small pipes to ‘Foothills’, a gleeful track in 5 sections that slowly accelerates toward the ‘Peaks’ that follows, itself then celebrated as a triumphant slip-jig. ‘Seasons’ and ‘Passes’ each suggest the subsequent descent, both brisk march medleys, smacking more of pleasure than discipline. 

NW now, the abbreviation surely now sufficient, opening with ‘Mountain’, a slow air on piano and with Duncan Chisholm taking the fiddle foreground, which is every bit as glorious as you might imagine. Especially as the string quartet engages, with then Lee’s cello taking on Chisholm directly. ‘Nurture’ and ‘Ridge’ are lighter structures, but no less graceful, the latter a spiky jazz-fumed concoction. ‘Sheiling’, the shortest track here, follows ‘Glens’, and is a solo flute piece, with added burn, which near seals part 3 with aplomb, after the decorous waltz into abandoned reel of ‘Glens’. This leaves room only for ‘Stone’ to sign off this direction with some now more orderly march tunes, led by Ainslie’s highland bagpipes. 

The NE side features last and, ‘Forts’, up first, is one of those delectable geometric constructions that slot their rhythms together like fine mortise and tenon work. Nominally a retreat march, it carries more pride than defeat. A complete change, then, for the chamber orchestration of ‘Faeries’, a courtly piano exposition that takes on hues from flute, electric bass and, finally more sumptuous strings. Finally triggering it off, come Stone’s drums, leading the composition into a full-blown flight of fancy. There is then a complete sideswipe into  ‘Slopes’, with a beginning that comes right from Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ Yes, it then segues into a complex bagpipe breakdown, adding yet further to Napier’s mastery of styles beyond purely the tradition and its attendant expectations. 

And, just as you were thinking that this is all nothing but precision instrumental play, Napier has the last laugh, as ‘Hollow’ is a song! With lyrics by Ewen Henderson, of Mánran, and the brother of Megan, another Breabach member, it is the longest track here, starting off with a pìobeareachd, played by John Mulhearn. Wordless keening seeps in, alongside the strings, these from Mary-Louise Napier, ahead the Gaelic vocal of Sian’s Ellen MacDonald, and, eventually a full, the full, rather, Hill Chorus. It makes for a splendid spine-tingling finale. 

Apologies, dear reader (and to my long-suffering editor here at Folking), for the length of this review, it nigh impossible to condense it down into anything less representative, such is the hefty footprint Napier has here well and truly placed. Those familiar with the earlier 3 volumes of this prospective pentalogy will not, I imagine, be phased, expecting nothing less from the skill and scholarship of this musician. I commend this to anyone with a love for the Scots tradition, but Lord help any reviewer tasked with writing up any eventual box set. 

Seuras Og 

Artist’s website: www.hamishnapier.com 

Hamish talks about The Hill: