Disc 330 is...Crosswinds
Artist: Capercaillie
Year of Release: 1987
What’s Up With The Cover?: This is how I like my folk album covers: simple and idyllic. Here we have an old school fishing harbour, likely in some Scottish firth. I have a soft spot for the Age of Sail, and while I prefer big ships-of-the-line in full sail against rough seas, I'll settle for a quiet fishing village, as long as there are some masts in it.
How I Came To Know It: As I've noted a few times on the Odyssey, in the late eighties and early nineties, I was very into Celtic folk music. Early on I didn't have many guideposts on how to discover new artists; they aren't played on the radio (or at least any station I was familiar with) and I knew next to no one who shared my passion. I found myself in A&B sound one day looking in the Scottish portion of the "world" section.
Not knowing what I was doing, I picked a band that had a lot of songs with Gaelic titles, and seemed to be prominent on the shelves. It turned out to be Capercaillie's "Crosswinds". My choice would result in a twenty year love affair with the band that continues to this day. That said, I do not recommend finding artists this way - you'd have better luck winning at roulette in Vegas.
How It Stacks Up: I have nine Capercaillie albums. "Crosswinds" I've had the longest, and still holds up well under stiff competition. I'd say it is between 3rd and 5th, depending on what part of the band's career I'm most into at any given moment (they change styles a fair bit along the journey).
Rating: 4 stars and almost 5. That's right - 4 stars for an album that is potentially as low as 5th best in the collection. You read that right, jerky.
We writers tend to wax poetic on topics, often overstating an argument just for the pure wordsmithery of the experience. So when I say that Capercaillie is my favourite Celtic folk band of all time, let me assure you that this is not one of those times.
Capercaillie is the best Celtic folk band I have ever heard. The fact that I found them basically by accident because of little more than an aesthetically pleasing cover and their propensity for using Gaelic in their song titles sorely tests my firmly held believe in a random universe.
At the time I wanted as 'authentic' a Celtic folk experience as I could get. Like lovers of heavy metal need to hear ever-heavier music, or lovers of jazz must have increasingly complex song constructions, lovers of folk look for increasingly 'real' folk experiences, characterized by artists that can cleave as close as possible to an art form hundreds of years old and still come off sounding fresh.
That is "Crosswinds" summarized. It is Capercaillie's second album released (I regret to admit I do not yet have their first, but it is on my list), and their sound is still solidly traditional in every sense. However, this band is living proof that traditional doesn't have to be boring. When it is delivered with the skill and emotional resonance as these guys are capable of, it makes you sit up and take notice.
That is not to say it is for everyone. If you don't like folk music, you certainly won't like this, where the hooks to pop sensibilities are few and far between. It also isn't for casual listening while someone talks over it; the fiddle reels will just sound annoying and shrill if you don't open your heart to them.
If you do open your heart to them, you will catch some beautiful melodies that rival or surpass anything in mainstream music. You will also be priviliged to hear the unsurpassed talent of Mr. Charlie McKerron on fiddle.
Granted, there are stylistic differences between different fiddles; fiddlers from Ireland, Cape Breton and the United States all have their own sounds that make them hard to compare. However, if you twist my rubber arm, I will tell you that Charlie McKerron is not only the finest player of the Scottish fiddle, he is the finest of them all.
The fiddle playing on "Crosswinds" taught me to appreciate the instrument in a way I had never done before. McKerron has the ability to play the same lines of a reel, note for note three or four times in succession, and yet somehow these notes will strike the ear each time in a way that makes you feel the song is progressing higher and higher. Listening is like watching a bird circling ever higher in the sky, cutting its flight with a song that lifts you on its wings and elevates your entire soul.
"Crosswinds" is replete with examples, including "The Haggis" where he comes in as accompaniment to the excellent recorder playing of Marc Duff, or where he takes matters fully into his own hands from the beginning on "Brenda Stubbert's Set" and "David Glen's" (fiddle reels tend to be named after someone). His playing can be soulful and low, or it can be frenetic, but he never misses, always taking you forward through the progressions seamlessly, right on each beat, and yet simultaneously slipping your mind ahead to the next without ever slipping. He does this even in the must furiously fast portions of a song. It is hard to describe, but very easy to listen to.
As if Charlie and Marc aren't enough, Capercaillie also boasts one of the greatest folk vocalists of our time; Karen Matheson. I would argue she is the best, with tones that rival an opera singer in their purity and power, without ever losing the human tones around the edge of each note so important for the human connection in folk music.
You may know her as the woman who sings the mournful dirge in the campfire scene in Rob Roy, but "Crosswinds" was my first encounter with her. In later albums, she sings songs in both Gaelic and English, but in this early effort all the singing is in Gaelic. The preservation of Gaelic has long been a passion of the band, in fact.
The first song on the record is a traditional Scottish "puirt a beul" which means roughly 'mouth music' where the words are secondary to the lilting quality of the vocals. In fact, in some places 'puirt a beul' can mean the words are actually just nonesense words, like scatting in jazz singing. The song is "Puirt A Beul/Snug In a Blanket". I have no idea what it is about (maybe nothing) but it makes me feel snug in a blanket on a winter's day.
Later on the record Matheson will sing songs that definitely tell a story, including the beautiful and haunting "Am Buachaille Ban." Not speaking Gaelic, until tonight I didn't know what it is about, but the song is so beautiful I can never help but be overwhelmed by the emotion of it when I hear it. More often than not, such songs are about some type of lost love. Through the power of google you can actually read an English translation right here. Sure enough - lost love, and a depressing one at that.
Equally beautiful is the equally incomprehensible (to me) "Urnaigh A'Bhan-Thigreach", another song that is translated here at my new favourite site, http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/. This time the song is about a woman praying to God for rain to end a drought before it claims her child. Not exactly uplifting stuff. Even without having the translation, Matheson's voice lets you know that something terrible is happening. She draws you into understanding with just her emotional delivery.
It is ironic that I discovered Capercaillie through a desire to have a very pure folk experience, and later they would become my principal gateway into other branches of folk music. In later records they would incorporate the sounds and arrangements of other cultures, as well as more modern pop musical structures, each time seamlessly blending them into the traditional sounds I first fell in love with on "Crosswinds". But those evolutions in their music I'll talk about when I review later albums.
Suffice it to say that in searching for a real Celtic experience I not only found its pinnacle, I also found a guide that would lead me into other aspects of this rich and under-appreciated genre of music for years to come.
Best tracks: Puirt A Beul/Snug In a Blanket, Am Buchaille Ban, The Haggis, Brenda Stubbert's Set, Urnaigh A'Bhan-Thigreach, My Laggan Love/Fox On The Town
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