Syzygy

Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and his longtime musical partner, Californian cellist Natalie Haas, released their first set as a duo back in 2004 with the Scots Trad Music Album of the Year, Fire & Grace. Fraser, whose playing has featured on major movies like Titanic, met Haas at one of his Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School camps, where he encouraged her to explore the cello’s heritage in Scottish fiddle tunes of the 1800s, before it was consigned to orchestral work. Five further duet albums have followed, including 2017’s Ports of Call, roaming away from Scottish music to embrace the music of Scandinavia, Spain and France.

For their latest, they have turned to original compositions, 20 across 15 tracks and an hour of sublime instrumental music. The album title refers to the lining up of celestial bodies, such as the sun, earth and moon during an eclipse. The duo themselves define it as ‘the joining of any two entities without losing the individual characteristics of either one,’ and that is an eloquent definition of the music here. Reels and airs, hornpipes and jigs, and influences from Scandinavia, and even Broadway, flow through the strings commanded by this always-impressive and distinct duo.