Heat the Hoose is a fiddle-lover's dream. Its thirteen tracks were recorded at Fiddle '97 in Edinburgh, and include a variety of expert fiddlers performing mostly traditional tunes, often unaccompanied. While the focus is on specifically Scots styles, this covers a range of sounds -- though one with many similarities as well.

Alasdair Fraser is featured on the CD cover, and his piece -- almost 9 minutes long! -- is indeed excellent. The gentle guitar accompaniment in the middle of the piece sets off his fiddling brilliantly. Fraser is far from the only outstanding musician on this CD, though; all are excellent. Connaillaigh, a group of musicians, deserves a special mention; I admire the way both their pieces focus on one tune and explore it musically. Most of the others blend from two to four tunes into their pieces, and that does have its charm; besides Fraser's piece, other standouts with this approach are Paul Anderson, Karen Steven and Aiden O'Rourke on their individual tracks. I don't mean to imply that these are better musicians than the others, though; everyone on this CD is a wonderful artist, and I mention these few only because of my personal preferences.

The liner notes are sketchy but adequate, with brief biographical notes on the musicians that mention their styles. The design is awkward, though, with the information about the musicians, the running times of the pieces and the tune names in three separate places.

I'm not an expert in Celtic fiddling, though I greatly enjoyed hearing so many skillful fiddlers. I'm beginning to learn more about the differences between the styles. I loved the energy and life in these pieces! The musicians were having a good time and it shows. While this album is best appreciated by fiddle lovers, they will love it, as do I.

[ by Amanda Fisher ]
Rambles: 1 September 2001