Description
Rory Sinclair (guitar) and Colin McLeod (fiddle) first found musical litl in their native homeland of Scotland. This experience was enhanced and further shaped by periods of life spent in Germany (Rory) and South Africa (Colin) before the chance encounter at the Australian National Folk Festival in Canberra 2004.
Rory and Colin join together in this special collaborative effort to bring Scottish music a la Down Under.
CD review by Richard Holz
TN158 – Oct 23
This album was brought to life by a chance meeting of Colin Macleod and Rory Sinclair at the National Folk Festival in Canberra in 2004.
Both musicians are native Scotsman.
Colin is a fiddle player while Rory plays guitar.
I am grateful for that chance meeting and the recording that became “Roaming Free”.
It is a great collection of purely instrumental tracks featuring many great sets that bring together fiddle and guitar as the Scots and the Irish do so well.
Right from the opener “Glen Tilt Set”, the tunes are upbeat.
This is contrasted almost immediately on the second track, “Lament For The Reverend Archie Beaton Set”.
Being a guitar player myself, I particularly enjoyed the guitar only tracks, no offence to the fiddle players out there!.
“The Seagull” is a track inspired by Tony McManus, another great traditional guitar player.
Rory does it justice in spades.
Other stand out tracks for me are the Slow Airs “John Roy Lyall Set” and “The Mill’O Set”.
They bring the two artists and their instruments together in a lovely way.
It is a pleasure to listen to.
This Celtic genre of music was very popular at Australian folk festivals round the time that “Roaming Free” was recorded.
Headline acts were often Irish acts like Lunasa, who I recall seeing a number of times.
The popularity of Celtic music was certainly always there, but it hit its peak around this time, spawning almost exclusive Celtic festivals like the Turning Wave, first held in Gundagai in 2008, and of course the Celtic music festival in Glen Innes and the Craic in Yass, both of which are still going.
In the mainstream folk festivals, it has fallen off the programs as audience’s tastes change and more contemporary genres move in.
While this might be seen as a shame by some, it is an inevitability.
Lovers of traditional Celtic sounds will enjoy the “Roaming Free” album and it might even inspire attendance at a Celtic festival.
