Skyedance
Live in Spain
Culburnie

By Bill Compton

Nevada City fiddler Alasdair Fraser’s world-music/fusion leanings come out on this live set, drawn from a three-city Skyedance tour of Spain. Galician singer Mercedes Peon’s “Marabilla” is supported beautifully by Fraser’s harmonic phrasing. Accordionist Kepa Junkera shines on Skyedance bassist Mick Linden’s “Dizzy” and the tour de force that ends the disc. “Stoney Run” begins with Basque percussion, moves into a jazz beat from Linden and comes back to pure percussion before a rousing finish with Skyedance. The energetic highlight is Fraser’s “The Spark,” with MIDI-bagpipes supplemented mightily by accordion. It isn’t all dance rave-ups: Fraser prefaces his melancholic “The Other Side of Sorrow” with spoken lines from Scottish poet Sorley MacLean’s “The Cuillin.” This is top-flight concert music, magical in its shadings, its emotional complexity and in its multicultural interweavings.