The Living Tradition Magazine

(reviewed by Debbie Koritsas)

I detect two young musicians absolutely brimming with confidence and ideas here. 18 Months Later is an album of striking originality – this accordion/piano & fiddle/viola duo’s gorgeous tunes offer compelling, absorbing listening. Their clear respect for Scottish folk tradition combines so beautifully with the classical, contemporary and jazz genres. You detect a Piazzolla influence here, a Breton folk touch there – and then you draw breath as electric guitar or fender rhodes interweave the mix. Ruaridh’s classical training is palpable throughout this recording, and Angus’ years of session work with contemporary UK musicians have paid off very handsomely.

This album succeeds on every level. There are huge shifts in mood and tempo, loads of space and detail in the arrangements – and the vast majority of these jigs, reels and airs are original compositions. The instrumentation works so well – Alan Train’s electric guitar is fabulously effective wherever it’s used, particularly on ‘The Trains (live from NYC),’ where the instrument threads its way sinuously through a lilting accordion-led tune. Highlight track ‘Drowsy Maggie’ is stunningly adapted to incorporate the most sublime ‘variations on a theme’, and makes you think in classical music terms – “allegro...lento e largo”. It’s an ambitious, intense, dramatic piece – passionately executed - Ruaridh's fiddle playing is superlative here.

The list goes on – there’s the liltingly beautiful ‘Compliments to Mr François Eberlé’, the effortlessly catchy ‘Washington Square Park’. A strong sense of rhythm and texture abounds.

This album is all the more impressive when you read the sleeve notes and realise that it seems to have been recorded in fairly difficult circumstances. Piano and double bass were recorded in the relatively civilised confines of An Tobar arts centre, Mull. But accordion, rhodes, bodhran, whistle, flugelhorn and trumpet were recorded in various rooms in Angus Lyons’ home, whilst Ruaridh recorded some of the fiddle/viola in his own living room.

A truly sensational recording from two of Scotland’s most exciting young musical innovators.

The Scotsman (Gaelic music review)

"Se 18 Months Later an CD ùr aig Aonghas Lyon agus Ruairidh Caimbeul (Mirrlees Records MIR 01). Bhuinnig Ruairidh an Glenfiddich Fiddle Championship ann an 2002, 's tha Aonghas air am British Accordion Championship a chosnadh sia tursan. Mar sin, chan eil e 'na iongnadh gu bheil ìre na cluichd air an CD ùr air leth math, ach cuideachd, cluinnear puirt agus dòighean cluichd aig Aonghas agus Ruairidh a tha an dà chuid ùr agus innleachdach.

Chruthaich iad fhèin mòran dhe na puirt, 's tha an obair aca a' dearbhadh gu bheil sàr ùidh aca ann an iomadh seòrsa ciùil, o jazz gu ceòl clasaigeach, 's ceòl o dhùthchannan eile. Air gach bann tha iad a' bristeadh air falbh on dòigh cluichd caran cumhang a tha buailteach a bhith cumanta am measg chòmhlan-dannsa Albannach 's a' dol a-mach gu saoghal ciùil nas fharsainge. Cluinnear seann phort no dhà air an CD ge-tà, 's tha an sreath de thionndaidhean air Drowsy Maggie 'nan deagh eisimpleir air an alt a th' aca air seann phort ùrachadh. Tron CD gu lèir, tha an tuigse a th' eadar an luchd-ciùil follaiseach, 's cluinnear gu soilleir gu bheil e a' còrdadh gu mòr riutha fhèin a bhith a' cluichd. Gheibh an luchd èisteachd mòran toileachais on chluichd aca cuideachd."

"18 months later is the title of the new CD from Angus Lyon and Ruaridh Campbell (Mirrlees Records MIR01). Ruaridh won the "Glenfiddich Fiddle Championship" in 2002, and Angus has won the British Accordion championship on six occasions. Consequently it is no surprise that the standard of the playing on the CD is exceptionally high, but in addition to this, tunes and playing styles which are both new and imaginative can be heard. Angus and Ruaridh composed most of the tunes, and their work demonstrates that they are interested in many kinds of music, from jazz to classical, to music from other cultures. On each track, Angus and Ruaraidh break away from the rather narrowly defined playing style which tends to be common among Scottish dance bands, and explore a much wider musical world. A few well known old tunes can be heard on the CD however, and the variations on "Drowsy Maggie" are a good example of their talent for giving new life to an old tune. Throughout the whole ! CD, the understanding between the two musicians is very evident, as is their own enjoyment of playing. The listener will derive much enjoyment from it too."

The Herald

Albums can forge strange liaisons. What, for example, might bring Mull Building Supplies and Astor Piazzolla, the late Argentinean genius of new tango, into the same orbit?
The answer is 18 Months Later by Angus Lyon and Ruaridh Campbell, which is grabbing both the traditional and world music scenes by the ears.

It's an album full of invention, energy, musicality, subtlety, great ideas and the sheer joy of making music, which is stunning from the first track. Mary Ann Kennedy, presenter of BBC Radio Scotland's Global Gathering and a singer and musician herself, has made it a personal cause, chivvying colleagues down south to play it.

Promoter and festival programmer Billy Kelly, who introduced the sensational Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and French double- bass phenomenon Renaud Garcia-Fons to Scottish audiences, gave 18 Months Later one listen and immediately booked Lyon and Campbell for Glasgow's world-music extravaganza, Big Big World in October. It's the album that Piazzolla might have made had he been Scottish.

While he isn't credited on the 18 Months Later cover, his enterprising spirit is tacit on the brilliantly realised, epic variations on the traditional tune Drowsy Maggie that forms the album's centrepiece, and, in conversation, Lyon and Campbell concede that his influence has been "massive".

As for Mull Building Supplies, without them 18 Months Later might never have happened. This is a story about music borne of an old tradition and brought to listeners by 21st-century technology. If only James Scott Skinner, whose lovely Bovaglie's Plaid closes the album with a trumpet and flugelhorn chorale, had had a laptop.

Lyon and Campbell are slightly bemused by the response they've had to the album. "My parents are the acid test for whether things are any good," says Lyon, an accordionist and pianist from Lamington, near Biggar, who came up through the Scottish country-dance band scene. "And my dad wasn't all that keen. He'd have preferred it if we'd just stuck to playing jigs and reels, but that was exactly what we didn't want to do. There's any number of bands doing that, and doing it so well that we can't possibly improve on it. So, we wanted to take tunes and develop them, see where we could take them."

The genesis for a wealth of different arrangements – from the languid, jazzy Fender Rhodes feel of The Trains (Live from NYC) to the bodhran as tablas romp that is Connor's Reel – was the pair's meeting in dance band The Picts in 1999. "I think I was still at school or had just left," says Aberfoyle-born Campbell, fiddler, violist and graduate of Strathclyde University's BA music course.

"We were playing at weekends to make some money. Then Angus put a band together to promote his Long Road CD in 2001 and we were touring Germany when we found that the bit that really excited us most was our duo spot. We seemed to have a natural rapport. So, we started working on that. I'd bring in things I'd written at uni and . . ." Lyon finishes the sentence for him by joking that they were impossible to play. "But that kind of thinking," Lyon continues, "where you're forced to play in a completely different way, has been really important to the way this music's developed. There are no rules and we take ideas from wherever we find them."

Their first album, Simple Tricks, released by Scottish folk label KRL in 2003, was to their liking musically but didn't exactly fly from the racks. So, they decided to go DIY for 18 Months Later.

"We knew that if we tried to do it in Glasgow, we'd play something, have a beer and wind up having about half an hour's work to show for the whole day," says Lyon. "So, we booked a room at An Tobar Arts Centre on Mull for three days because we like the sound you get there and the people at the centre are so helpful."

Armed with laptops and all the microphones, cables and instruments they needed, and with the incentive of having to justify paying for self-catering accommodation, too, they arrived in Tobermory and set to work. Only for the soundcard, the crucial piece of technology for computer recording and the one item for which they had no back-up, to develop a click. "It was knackered," explains Campbell, in layman's terms. Mull doesn't run to a state-of-the-art recording equipment shop, so phone calls were made. Lots of them.

Sound Control in Glasgow agreed to supply a replacement soundcard if the duo could get it to Mull. Colin Train, whose brother, Alan, later added guitar parts on the album, was in Edinburgh with a car, half a tank of petrol and absolutely no means of funding the return trip. Money was wired to his bank account so that he could pick up the soundcard in Glasgow and drive to the ferry terminal, whereupon Mull Building Supplies' van driver agreed to deliver the soundcard to a frazzled Lyon, Campbell and bass player Duncan Lyall.

The recording went ahead, with spectacular results, but their technological troubles weren't over. Just after Lyon pressed "save" to consign the finished album to his hard drive, artwork by Campbell included, his laptop crashed. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the external hard drive, they were able to rescue the whole package. "To lose it after all we'd been through with the soundcard, wouldn't bear thinking about," says Lyon.

"But I listen to the album now and I don't think we could have improved on it sound-wise if we'd recorded it conventionally in a studio. After Mull, we went to various people's living rooms and added the guitar, tin whistle, bodhran and horns. You know, we arrive at Alan Train's, have spaghetti hoops on toast and he's put down exactly what we want within 40 minutes. Then Duncan [Lyall] mixed it in his living room. The only time we went to a studio was to have the album mastered."

The next step now is to take the music from 18 Months Later out on the road. A band has been formed, with Lyall on bass and Colin Train, the hero of the replacement soundcard, sharing the accordion and piano parts with Lyon, and rehearsals are under way. Marketing themselves, both in terms of the album and as a live attraction, as they've found, is a steep learning curve. There's also the small matter of keeping enough money to live on coming in while they run up phone bills calling venues, promoters and the like.

"We're fortunate in that we do quite a lot of work for Yehudi Menuhin's Live Music Now! Scheme," says Campbell, who could have gone into orchestral work but preferred to follow a passion for traditional music that saw him compete successfully in Mods and win the prestigious Glenfiddich Fiddle Championship in 2002.

Live Music Now! takes them into communities to play to people with learning difficulties and into hospices and hospitals. "It's very much one-to-one with the audience and it really helps you to learn how to communicate with people, explaining where your music comes from and the stories behind it. That's really valuable training," says Campbell."Although sometimes you might not get the reaction you hoped for." The pair go on, with typical self-deprecation, to describe an incident where a patient tried to get them to give up their chairs so that she could use them as crutches to escape from their concert.

Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, has been more appreciative, inviting Lyon to play on his new album and in concerts on double-bassist Danny Thompson's recommendation. If Lyon's father has still to be won over by 18 Months Later, his mother has, since Angus phoned her from a rehearsal with Islam, at least stopped asking when he's going to get a proper job."We were doing an Adopt A Landmine concert and Paul McCartney was going to be there, too, so Yusuf Islam said he'd sing Let It Be. Except, he didn't know all the words." Lyon phoned home, got his mother to Google Let It Be and recite the words on the computer screen. The man she knew as Cat Stevens thanked her by singing the song down the line to her. So, now she thinks Angus is doing okay? "Actually, it might have backfired," says Lyon. "She thinks, because I'm hanging out with big stars, that suddenly I'm loaded. And nothing could be further from the truth."

The Scotsman

The accordionist and pianist Angus Lyon and the fiddler Ruaridh Campbell's second album explores a soundscape firmly rooted in Scottish traditional music, but reshaped into new and intriguing harmonic and rhythmic contours.

In addition, several guest instrumentalists help expand the textural possibilities they use on this CD.

Most of their material is self-composed, ranging from bright, sinuous melodies through to lovely slow airs.

They turn to traditional tunes only twice, in the shape of Scott Skinner's Bovaglie's Plaid and an epic theme-and-variations reworking of Drowsy Maggie, and remake both in their own style."

Mary Ann Kennedy

"As with their debut album, Angus and Ruaridh have created a collection of imaginitive and individual tracks, always chock full of ideas but never cluttered. They are a technical and artistic match which lets their music shine through. '18 Months Later' album deserves every success."

www.folkenlared.com

This second cd of accordion and piano player Angus Lyon and fiddler Ruaridh Campbell (the first was published by KRL) has 11 innovative tracks.

The first thing that is obvios when you listen to this album is that it isn't your typical "jigs & reels" traditional cd. Most of the tunes are composed either by Lyon or Campbell and even though they are firmly rooted in tradition, the music goes beyond that. The only way of labeling this cd is a mixture between traditional Scottish music and modern, fresh contemporary music, and even that doesn't cover everything on the album.

The two musicians are joined in several moments by Duncan Lyall (double bass), Martin O'Neill (bodhran), Alan Train (electric guitar), Marc Duff (whistle) y J. Simon van der Walt (trumpet and frugelhorn). Lyon plays piano accordion, piano and rhodes and Campbell plays fiddle and viola.

Even though most of the tracks are relatively slow, there's a little bit of everything. The second track is the one that is most similar to a set of reels that any trad band would play, whith two compositions that, due to the accompainment, remind us of Sandy Brechin's work with the band Burach, but with more complex arrangements. You can listen to this track in Angus Lyon's Myspace.

The last track on the Cd is James Scott Skinner's Sovaglie's Paid, played by Campbell on the fiddle, with lovely piano, trumpet and frugelhorn backing. The other only traditional tune besides this is Drowsy Maggie, one of the most abused tunes in the history of traditional music. Played by everyone and in any possible way, Lyons and Cambell have found the way to make the tune shine again. Their seven-minute Drowsy Maggie (variations on a theme) has them play the tune a couple of times and then they experiment with it, twisting the melody and the arrangements in a way that makes seven minutes seem three. The result just has to be listened to.

But the track that is really boasting with elegance is Washington Square Park (which you can also listen in myspace). Composed by both Campbell and Lyon, the tune has it all. It's simple enough to be catchy while being complex enough to require decent ability to play it. The changes in the backing and the dialogue between fiddle and accordion prevents the sole tune in the track from wearing out and has you actually wondering what they are going to do with the melody next. They even allow themselves to finish the track with the instrument that is supposedly considered to be the most vulgar of the lot, a lone bodhran beat. And it works excellently.

If what you are looking for is the typical jigs'n'reels cd, this won't be the wisest choice. On the other hand, if you want relaxed, elegant music that retains all the qualities of the Scottish tradition, you can't go wrong with 18 Months Later.