Little Hinges

Structured in two parts, Qristina and Quinn Bachand's third album finds the Canadian siblings on a mission to broaden the vocabulary of Irish traditional music. The first half boasts relatively straightforward arrangements, Quinn's characterful clawhammer banjo and guitar and Qristina's fluid, flexible fiddle and mature and measured vocals augmented by some unlikely instrumental additions, conspicuously a Wurlitzer and drum kit in the lively pairing of jigs ‘The Reunion’ and a paint can-drum loop on ‘Crooked Jack’ (which owes some kinship to ‘The Star of the County Down’).

The ambient wash of the title-track sets the tone for the de-facto ‘B’ side, distinguished by Joby Baker's agreeably quixotic lo-fi production. Quietly bristling with a splashy rawness, it's backlit by distorted guitars (the gorgeous Appalachian-like elegy ‘Never Goodbye’), flashes of feedback and a Casio keyboard rescued from a thrift store (notably on the gallows humour of Quinn's vocal debut on disc, ‘Hang Me’). Glockenspiel, céleste, eerie whistling and echoing electric guitar add to the bedsit mordancy of ‘Jimmy's Fiddle’. In all, it amounts to something of a revelation. The Bachand duo have hit on something fresh and vital here, opening up a potentially rich seam ripe for further exploration.