John McCusker celebrates his 25th anniversary as a professional musician with a rare solo outing. The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer has had a colourful career, playing with the Battlefield Band, Kate Rusby and Heidi Talbot and touring the world with Mark Knopfler. McCusker’s 2008 album Under One Sky included songs from Julie Fowlis and Graham Coxon, but this is an instrumental set – apart from a brief Talbot vocal at the start of the rousing opening track, Calendar Boys.
The album is dominated by McCusker’s powerful and varied fiddle playing, with help from a celebrity band that includes Tim O’Brien, Michael McGoldrick and Andy Cutting. He shows his gift for melody on dance tunes and waltzes and there’s exquisite uilleann pipe work from Jarlath Henderson on the poignant Tune for Nana. A classy collection of tunes, but a song or two from Talbot would have been welcome.
