Stone Soup

This is an audacious piece of work by two accomplished musicians. Adam Summerhayes is a classically trained fiddler with a rich Northumbrian, Celtic and Eastern European heritage. Having travelled the world playing concertos, he has been drawn back to his folk roots. He asked Irish bodhrán percussionist Cormac Byrne to join his latest project, the Gypsy-Celtic-klezmer fusion of Dodo Street Band, and this is an organic offshoot from that meeting. In a Derbyshire kitchen late one night, they conceived the idea to record an improvised album over the space of two nights. With its emphasis on the passage of a night and its pace and rhythm, it evokes both contemporary and Indian classical music.

Byrne brought a marimbula and berimbau into the studio to add extra texture to this sonic ‘stone soup.’ The first tones of fiddle feel Eastern, like a slow alap, before the rhythm builds, pulling the sound west towards something akin to klezmer. The whole is very satisfying.