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From the opening bars of ‘Ian’s Trip to Wales’ to the closing notes of ‘Tiger’s First Bird’ (there’s a distinct naming problem which runs through the whole album, it’s not just the title) close your eyes and you’re stood on Hadrian’s Wall with the rain coming at you hard and horizontal, or looking out across a raging sea from Lindisfarne or holed up in The Crown and Anchor after the tide’s come in and you’re not going anywhere for a while at least.

It seems to me Kathryn Tickell manages to bring some of the wilderness of the Northumbrian geography into this album in a way which shuns nostalgia, and at the same time is grounded in the Northumbria of the Angel, the Millenium Eye which stretches across the Tyne and the glittering Sage (in which incidentally Tickell is playing on 23 June).

Northumbria has a whole atmosphere of its own (and the only other people I’ve met as proud and protective of their land are the Cornish. If Northumbria were separated from the mainland as Cornwall is the Geordies and Maccams would be out in the dead of night trying to widen the gap with long sticks. As I’m sure the Cornish are right now). Instrumental is full of this fierce independence.

Ian Stevenson’s guitar playing is masterful and Tickell’s smallpipes’s playing is beyond compare. It may have a dull title, but the airs and jigs on Instrumental are as far from dull as Gormley’s welcome sign to the north.

Instrumental is released on Park Records.

Tour Dates:
9 June, Bromborough, Wirral (The Kathryn Tickell Band)
10 June, Southwell Folk Festival
14 June, The Zetland Centre, Richmond, North Yorks
15 June, Gregynog Festival
23 June, Sage Gateshead Hall 1 ,
14 July, The Mart, Rothbury
26 July, Buxton Opera House
4 August, Wickham Festival
5 August, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk
26 August, Shrewsbury Folk Festival
4 September, Isle of Skye
5 September, Nevis Centre, Fort William
6 September, Tulloch Castle, Dingwall
25 September, Wetherby Festival
3 November, Denholm Folk Festival, Scottish Borders

Links:
http://www.kathryntickell.com/