In Buenos Aires

Argentina has a healthy Celtic music scene, thanks to its small but significant populations of Scottish and Irish extraction and thanks to the many Galicians who relocated there in the last century. This intriguing CD hooks up Scottish piper Fraser Fifield with talented bandoneón (squeezebox) player Walther E Castro, with further support from guitar and double bass. The two lead instruments meet most naturally at the melancholy end of the musical spectrum, and most of these ten tracks are lilting, reflective numbers. Castro likes to draw out long chords and add single notes, shifting occasionally to the quietest and deftest of poetic phrases, while Fifield's border pipes and low whistle spiral around these loosely, even raucously. The juxtaposition of tango rhythms and freeform melodies doesn't always work – there seems to be little emotional correspondence at times – but is nonetheless fascinating as an aural experiment.
Of all the world's instruments, bagpipes and bandoneón carry some of the heaviest cultural baggage; Fifield and Castro cut through the stereotypes to create something genuinely fresh. Fans of Carlos Núñez will enjoy In Buenos Aires immensely.