Celtic Connections New Voices: Beth Malcolm

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall - 22/01/23 

Beth Malcolm grew up steeped in Scottish traditional song and developed a relationship with it characterised by varying degrees of distance at different times in her life. This relationship formed the theme of a hugely enjoyable New Voices on the first weekend of this year’s Celtic Connections. 

Ms Malcolm began with fragments of some of the songs she learned from a very early age – the process of ‘folkmosis’ as she put it – embedded in a lush arrangement of strings and accordion. She went on to visit different stages of her life with songs full of energy and passion, expressed in her rich alto, somewhat breathy in the upper and lower registers, and excellent diction.  

There was little in the way of spoken introductions to the songs (rightly so as this would have broken up the flow of the piece) so I can only hazard a guess at titles. Songs like ‘Leaving Loch Leven’ and ‘Come Back To Me’ sparkled with strong melodies referencing the folk tradition, while a powerful torch song with only double bass for accompaniment for the first two verses (her ‘teenage angst’ number as she said) relived the intensity of a teenage love affair. A later love affair, possibly an antidote to other, often unwise, ones with ‘monosyllabic Scottish men’, is celebrated in the outstanding number of the set, ‘Choose My Company’, a waltz-time beauty which brings together Ms Malcolm’s gift for melody and fresh, internally consistent imagery, skilfully deployed. 

Another highlight was a celebration, if that’s the word, of her first two-day hangover, a song punctuated by rhythmic handclaps and a coruscating whistle solo from the ever inventive Ali Levack. Two songs continued the exploration of her relationship with the folk tradition, one a reading of Ed Pickford’s iconic ‘Worker’s Song’, made famous by Dick Gaughan on his landmark ‘Handful of Earth’ album, the other a moving tribute to Michael Marra, in which Ms Malcolm uses the melody of Marra’s ‘Frieda Kahlo At The Tay Bridge Bar’ and rewrites the lyric to extol his inspirational qualities. 

It was an indication of the quality of the presentation that the hour seemed to flash by. A first class band, including two former winners of the Young Traditional Musician of the Year, put a seal on that quality with particular praise due to musical director and arranger, Dorian Cloudsley and to the sound engineer. The concert finished with the musicians putting their instruments aside and joining in an a capella song that summarised Beth Malcolm’s take on the value of the tradition she grew up with: “I will sing in the language that I love my brother in, that I tell my story in”.