Hand to Play

The Seattle-based guitarist and singer Eli West is well-known for his old-time Americana duo with fellow singer Cahalen Morrison. West's partnership with the Norwegian Hardanger fiddler Olav Mjelva seems to be equally intuitive and assured. Guitar and fiddle blend effortlessly together, complementing each other in ascending and descending melody lines and riffs. Mjelva's playing is always unmistakably Scandinavian yet he comfortably drops in old-time American slurs, slides and hoedown bowing patterns, producing a seamless fusion. West sings on ‘Hand to Play’ and ‘Isle of France’, the latter being an English traditional song given an Americana treatment. West has one of those reedy yet robust tenor voices that is Americana through and through, seemingly precision-tooled for cutting across bluegrass stringed instruments.

But it's the more Scandi-influenced material that this reviewer leans towards. It's these tracks that add darkness to an album that sometimes comes across as a little too refined and polite. The dark and moody ‘Stout's Waltz’ is one of the album's most traditional sounding tracks. Written by Mjelva, it is dedicated to Shetland fiddler Chris Stout and is packed with fluttery Norwegian fiddle ornaments and double-stopping, with some quintessentially Scandinavian changes from minor to major. West's instrument sounds more like a mandolin than a guitar here, adding to the sombre northern-clime temperament.