Breabach
Edinburgh International Festival, The Hub, 1/8/24
Breabach
This was billed as a ‘preview’ event despite the fact that it was Breabach’s only appearance at the Festival. What was being previewed perhaps was the Hub itself, arranged like an outsize house concert with armchairs, sofas, and Persian rugs on the floor of the stage. This was my first visit to the Hub for many years and it was good to be reminded of the sumptuous décor and its status as one of the best acoustics around.
Breabach is arguably the leading band in the acoustic tendency of traditional music ensembles (as distinct from the very popular TideWestManSkippinVore line of folkish rock bands). With two excellent pipers in Calum MacCrimmon and Conal McDonough, the band lays considerable emphasis on the piping repertoire and on Gaelic song, expertly delivered in high, sweet, clear tones by fiddler Megan Henderson.
The piping tradition came memorably to the fore in a new composition of MacCrimmon’s, ‘The John Mackenzie March’, inspired by an evening in Skye hearing an old style of piping, which MacCrimmon said he had never heard before and, given the age of the eponymous Mackenzie, might not hear again. The tune had an appropriately elegiac tone, with the twin pipes swelling to a climax in harmony lines with Henderson’s fiddle providing a sinuous counter-melody. The warm, prolonged applause which greeted the number suggests a classic in the making.
Breabach has the musicianship to confidently vary textures – dropping down to fiddle and guitar only, for example – as the pipers exchange whistles with the pipes, and bring in MacCrimmon’s bouzouki to complement the supple rhythm section of James Lindsay’s double bass and Ewan Robertson’s guitar. They all sing as well, as demonstrated on a poem by the bard Iain MacDougall in a meditative setting against a drone, Megan’s voice contrasting with the four male voices. My only quibble here was that mood of the piece was somewhat broken by a doubling of the rhythm towards the end.
The band all have a nice line in wry humour, which added to the informality and conviviality of the evening in its ceilidh-like setting. A flash of step dancing from MacCrimmon and a funky closing number sealed the deal for an audience captivated from the beginning.