Skelbo Press Page - Quotes, Reviews and Articles

"Lovers of rousing traditional music will welcome the recent release of...Skelbo" Northern Times

"Earthy and moving" Editor, "Traditional Music"

"This is an intriguing collection full of surprises, like how well step-dancing sounds, even when you can't see it; how evocative an instrumental depicting rowing in the Minch can be;...there is much to enjoy on this evocative and innovative album." The Scots Magazine, October 2000

The Living Tradition, September/October 2000

Skelbo : "Skelbo" (Skelbo Music SKMCD001)

Skelbo is the station between Cambusavie Halt and Embo on a now-defunct light railway, a ruined castle and a crofting area to the north of Dornoch in Sutherland, where you may savour the spectacle of the aurora borealis in late autumn and early spring. It's also a band, a website, a record label and the title of the first release on the aforesaid label. The core of the band is Veronique Nelson (fiddle, viola) and Iain Strachan (guitar, vocals) but they're joined on their eponymous debut by Eddie Scott (spoons, bodhran), Erik Knussen (double bass) and Frank McConnell (stepdancing, percussion).

Nelson, a founder-member of Curlew, wrote her thesis on Gallician pipe music. Strachan is working with Scottish National Orchestra player Knussen on the CD of his songs which will be Skelbo's (the label, that is) second release. Scott runs a popular spoons workshop at Celtic Connections whilst McConnell is a former Dancer in Residence.

With talent of this calibre, it's difficult to see how Skelbo could fail - and they don't. "Skelbo" is a most accomplished foray into the crowded world of recorded traditional music ; it also includes music written in the traditional style by the likes of Tom Anderson and, of course, Strachan's songs. These adopt an original approach to the age-old themes of love and leaving, and Burns' "The Banknote" is presented as you've never heard it before, in Strachan's singular setting. It's a pity the lyrics aren't on the inlay, because sometimes they're slightly indistinct, and they're worth hearing - still, you can always get them from the website! The traditional tunes range from "Daldownies Reel" to the Breton "Sonerezh Eus Breizh".

Bands like Skelbo are a reminder, certainly, that the tradition is in safe hands, but also that it is being constantly reinvented with skill and sensitivity.

Dave Tuxford

Inverness Courier, Tuesday, August 8, 2000:

Balnain -bound - with a note from Burns

With their first CD in the shops, Sutherland folk band Skelbo make a start on expending their date-book with a gig at Balnain House on Thursday (10th August)

"Until now we've only been active at a private level, playing for guests at Skibo Castle, a 'Scotland:The Brand' promotion in Paris and a wedding in Dunrobin," fiddler Veronique Nelson said."We've been operating on this basis because our bass player lives in Fife and I've been tied up with children but now they're of an age where we can strike out more we're keen to do public performances."

Born in Somerset of English and French parents , Veronique studied Spanish and Portugese at Edinburgh University where she became interested in traditional music and wrote a post-graduate thesis on Galician bagpipes. "The bagpipes are my favourite instrument and I was tempted to give them a go - but I couldn't get the breathing right," she revealed.

Instead, she took up the fiddle, learning at first hand from a number of Shetland fiddle players who lived in Edinburgh. "I wouldn't have attempted to play Shetland music at all if I didn't have them to teach me the style," she said.

Veronique went on to join Curlew and record an album of Shetland fiddle music for the celebrated Topic label. It was in Edinburgh that she met Manchester-born Iain Strachan, guitarist with Malin Head. The couple settled in Strathmiglo where they met Erik Knussen - a cousin of the English composer Oliver Knussen - who had played double bass for the Scottish National Orchestra and bass guitar with various Glasgow rock bands before becoming a music teacher in Fife.

"The local pub wanted some music, so the three of us got together because we thought fiddle, guitar and bass would make a nice sound," Veronique said. When Iain and I moved to Sutherland eight years ago, we continued to play with Erik and added Eddie Scott on spoons and bodhran."

An Irishman who lives at Ardross, Eddie was well-known on the Highland Traditional music scene and conducts workshops at Glasgow's Celtic Connections. The newly expanded group also aquired the name of Skelbo, the village near Dornoch where Veronique and Iain live.

For the past four years, Iain has commuted daily to work at the Corbett Centre, Inverness, as a member of its Learning Disabilities team, supporting adults in the community and for two summers Veronique performed regularly at Balnain House with accordianist Melanie Simpson.

When Skelbo play for dancing they're frequently joined by a piper - Alasdair Fraser from Achiltibuie or former Battlefield Bandsman Duncan MacGillvray from Nigg. Dancer, choreographer Frank McConnell acts as the band's caller and appears as a step-dancer on their debut CD. "That was Iain's idea," Veronique revealed. "He thought the percussive sound of Frank's feet would make that particular track interesting and different."

The contemporary rhythms of Iain's self-penned songs provide a contrast to the band's instrumental repertoire which ranges from Scotland and Shetland to Britanny and Spain. "I spent some time in Gallicia doing post-graduate research and developed an interest in all kinds of music from Spain and Portugal - and that's where I picked up 'A Bruxa' which we feature on the album," Veronique explained. "Iain wrote 'The Salacious Tango' and gave it a flamenco flavour with me multi-tracking as 'The Alhambra Strings'!"

Another Strachan composition on the recording is a setting of a Robert Burns poem written on the back of a banknote. "The words are as pertinent today as when Burns wrote them," Iain said. I was also intrigued by the idea of him writing the lines on the back of a bank-note when he was virtually broke, so I set out to track it down.

"I thought it would take months because it had been in a private collection - but it only took two minutes. I phoned Directory Inquiries and when they asked what name I was looking for I said 'Robert Burns'. Address? - 'Ayrshire, but he's been dead for 200 years'. They gave me the number of the Burns Cottage Museum and the curator immediately gave me permission to use a photograph of the banknote and poem on the CD sleeve."

The Strachan song that has attracted widest attention, however, is 'Under The Northern Lights'.

"That's got quite a lot of airplay," the composer revealed, "I even got an e-mail from Wisconsin to say they'd played it on their 'Prairie Ceilidh Show'!"