Off the Floor

Welcome to the legendary dance halls of Canada's Cape Breton where, once a favoured fiddler like Wendy MacIsaac starts a set, she may just keep playing for hours. That's been going on there for centuries, preserving the dance steps, melodies, and instrumental styles carried across the Atlantic by Scottish settlers. In that tradition, MacIsaac has summoned an audience of audibly appreciative friends (for the first five tracks of this album), along with accompanists Tracey Dares MacNeil (piano) and Patrick Gillis (guitar), who support the fiddle without need of cutesy contemporary updating. The remaining tracks are arranged as three ‘figures’, the first two being jigs and the last reels, and they accompanied live dancing at the West Mabou Hall. Similarly, on the spray of strathspeys on the album's final track, individual step dancers can be heard showing off their stuff, working with the musicians to elicit yelps and applause.

MacIsaac's bow bounces and dances across the fiddle's strings, producing a fascinating spectrum of tones, as she varies force and angle of approach. The instrument's voice at times seems to evoke the bagpipe. There's variation also in the affect of the Celtic melodies, sometimes whimsical, sometimes melancholy, building a bridge that connects Scotland, Eastern Canada, and the Appalachians.