Firelight Trio

A new trio featuring accordionist Phil Alexander (Moishe's Bagel), renowned Scottish fiddle player Gavin Marwick and Ruth Morris on the Swedish nyckelharpa, Firelight Trio's first album together is a rich and diverse mixture of European music. The eponymous album covers everything from skittish Swedish polskas and Scottish reels to lilting French waltzes and joyful jigs, from lively klezmer tunes to a lovely, sad remembrance of the fallen from the cataclysmic World War I battle at Passchendaele.

The eclectic nature of this exceptional record is evident right from the off, as ‘Chasen Senem’, which comes from the repertoire of Romanian-born cimbalom player Joseph Moskowitz, leads into two tunes from Marwick's (by all accounts extensive) Horizons tune collection, the sardonic ‘Filthy Lucre’ and ‘The Latvian's March’, a celebration of Latvia declaring independence from the Soviet Union, before the pell-mell ‘En Charrette / The Last Minute’ propels us across to France – and so on. This could actually all be a bit exhausting were it not so evocative and enchanting, a tribute to the obvious love and admiration the three have not only for the music but for each other. I’d be willing to bet that Firelight Trio will be a hoot live, after they launch this collection at Celtic Connections.