The quartet album: five centuries of Scottish music and other exotica by Daniel Johnston, Stina Nordenstam, Buzzcocks, Astor Piazzolla and Thomas Morley
with Lisa Milne, Daniel Johnston and Mary Ann Kennedy
We based this record around the 'Lion' quartet of two Davids and two McGillivrays, formed when working on the Spring Any Day Now album. Although we started out with historical Scottish music, we also tried anything we liked that might fit on our baroque instruments, whether it was a rhythmically complex Thomas Morley exercise, the Buzzcocks classic Boredom (with Lisa Milne yelling 'get yer hand oot o ma troosers'), a sonata for viola d'amore, or playing along with Daniel Johnston's home recordings. It was an exciting time. After a short tour, we recorded our set and put it into a sequence where the music gradually gets calmer as the album goes on, so that it could lull the listener into a more relaxed state, after the 'Gothic nightmare ceilidh band' of the opening set of William Marshall tunes.
When Katherine McGillivray died tragically young in 2006, there was no question of replacing her, so by the time the album came out, the group that played this music had ceased to exist. What remains here is that first set of colourful possibilities, that we'd hoped were just the beginning.
The recording of the year. Everyone should own this disc. The Herald
reviews
Nestling within this disc, primarily of Scots-accented baroque repertoire - all as exquisitely played as we have come to expect - lurks the recording of the year. David McGuinness's group, augmented by flautist Chris Norman, performs the Buzzcocks' Boredom with soprano Lisa Milne as lead vocalist. Thirty years on from the Spiral Scratch EP, she sings it in her own Aberdonian accent and with the ennui Howard Devoto and Peter Shelley could only aspire to. Everyone should own this disc. Other fine tracks include a reworking of Daniel Johnston's Walking the Cow and Astor Piazzolla's exquisite Coral. The Herald