Telluric Translations

Conceived amid the strangeness that became normality during lockdown, Telluric Translations is the result of four musicians communicating across the world by Zoom and exchanging images and musical files to develop music reflective of their locations and memories. Bassist Quee MacArthur and mandolinist Luke Plumb have – respectively – long-term and sizable associations with Scottish acid croft pioneers Shooglenifty and pianist-accordionist Joseph Peach and fiddler Charlie Grey are both a duo with a substantial history and members of the group Westward the Light.

As such, despite Plumb being in Tasmania and the others spread across Scotland, they were all well placed to create music that variously conveys a sense of place and dances, sometimes (as on the opening ‘Norman's Law’) with an air of charm and at other times (‘Flinders Trees’) with a pleasantly ominous swirl. ‘There is Life’, with its semi-spoken vocal, hangs gently in the air. ‘Lismore’ captures the island's atmosphere with birdsong and a waltzing piano figure, and ‘Studio View Meets the Red House Reel’ delivers what it suggests with an added surge of near-swing violin.