Meeting Point: Live at the Liverpool Philharmonic

Recorded live at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, this stirring album brings together Scottish fiddling from the ubiquitous Aly Bain with American old-time music from Bruce Molsky – so far, so Transatlantic Sessions. But it also welcomes Scandinavian folk music to the party, courtesy of Swedish musician and composer Ale Möller. It's a heady mix, opening here with a traditional Shetland hymn and reel set and ranging, via such traditional American folk tunes as ‘Boll Weevil’ and ‘The Hills of Mexico’, to the stunning ‘Troll Tuning Set’, which inspired a particular fiddle tuning used in Scandinavia, Shetland and in American old-time music that is believed, in Sweden, to connect the players with magical powers.

But you don't have to believe in magic to be stunned by the chemistry between these three consummate players and their obvious enjoyment of the music when it's in the moment. It's not just the complex intuitive interaction between the three musicians, however, that makes the show so thrilling; it's the imaginative way the tunes have been sequenced to lead into and from each other, revelling in the sometimes unexpected musical kinship between the traditions.