The haunting sound of dark storms, raging winds and a battering sea were brought vividly to life as Esther Swift and her band climaxed their three-show run at the Fringe with a wondrous blend of folk and electronica in a sold-out amphitheatre.
The show, set in a room furnished with upcycled pianos in the early 19th-century neoclassical building, reflected on the role of the musician amid the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic. It comprised a rich assortment of numbers created by the Edinburgh-based Swift in January for Celtic Connections, Britain’s leading celebration of Celtic music.
The black-clad, Dr Martens-wearing harpist, composer and singer-songwriter opened with “The Call”, a mystical, dimly lit piece, with Swift, 34, conjuring up a storm with her ethereal voice and tender harp-playing. She was backed up by the excellent London-based Owen Williams on the xylophone and crotales, John Kenny on trombone and Emma Lloyd on violin.
Matthew Collings, meanwhile, added weight and body to this piece and the rest of the score with an improvised electronic soundscape, created by his wizardry on a laptop and analogue synthesiser.
Next up was “Meta Data”, which Swift informed us was about “the paranoia that can arise from too much internet time”. Easing into the relaxed atmosphere, she took off her DMs to reveal a pair of red socks before leaning into her instrument for this unsettlingly percussive number.
“Dream Angus”, a Scottish lullaby about Angus, the Celtic god of dreams, which focuses on rural Scotland, followed with Swift lightly plucking her harp and Williams pitter-pattering away on the xylophone. If you closed your eyes in what was once the Old Royal High School’s library, you could almost sense the misty moors. A poem by Swift’s pal, Rachel McCrumm, featured in the next piece, which recontextualised a quote by Lord Byron to re-empower women.
A tribute to the nostril-probing joys of the lateral flow test was cleverly set to discordant music before Swift embarked on “One Cigarette”, a Bjorkesque solo piece commissioned in the depths of the pandemic by the Edwin Morgan Trust. Glasgow’s first poet laureate was also at the heart of the jaunty title track, “Sound Effects”, which featured a recording of his voice, played over and over again, as Matt Wright, co-director of the Pianodrome, joined the band on soprano saxophone.
The evening ended on a note of tranquillity, with Swift softly singing William Butler Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, about a yearning for the peaceful solitude found in nature, as Kenny reappeared with the atmospheric alphorn and Williams coaxed magic out of the crotales. By the end you could almost hear the lake water lapping by the shore.
Esther Swift: Sound Effects
The Pianodrome
