Fiona Rutherford & Amy Duncan
Album: Quirk
Label: Quirk
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.myspace.com/fionarutherford http://www.amyduncan.co.uk

This mini-album is a collaboration between Scottish harpist and composer Fiona and double bassist Amy (who's perhaps better known as a singer-songwriter). It's rather like a series of amiable conversations between harp and double bass, but with a few interesting little quirks along the way to throw you out of any complacency. Even so, it's not music that shouts out at you for attention, and the journey through its 26-minute span is anything but confrontational; rather, I'd describe it as gently exciting.

The explanatory note for the very first track, Lines On The Map, suggesting that its inspiration is derived partly from "the idea that you can travel easily through music", could equally apply to almost any other of the tracks too, for the feel of the music-making is consistent with that philosophy. Each of the individual pieces, though evidently carefully and deliberately structured, has the air of a relaxed improvisation; the two instrumentalists may not always be quite equal partners in the musical argument, but their relationship is that of companions rather than combatants.

Fiona's forte has been composition of new music for the Scottish harp, and she brings that talent both to the creation of music (latterly much for films) that encompasses influences from folk, classical and light jazz, and to her robust and confident playing style.

Amy is a very competent, if undemonstrative (as opposed to overtly virtuoso) double bass player; her classical training stands her in good stead, and she shows all due sensitivity whether playing pizzicato or (on a couple of pieces) arco. All but one of the pieces were composed by Fiona herself; the odd one out is the final track, Rare And Free, which is a delicate, if elusive song with lyrics by David Paton, for which Amy supplies both vocal and guitar, and the music.

David Kidman