Firelight Trio - Fatea review, Gavin McNamara, here

Venue: St George's, Bristol,16-03-2023

St George's was made for nights like this one. Where the acoustics allow the instruments to soar and the musicians are of such rare quality that nothing else matters but the sounds being made. And what sounds they are… some of the most transportive music that you'll ever hear.

Firelight Trio are made up of accordion player Phil Alexander (from Moishe's Bagel), remarkable Scottish fiddle player Gavin Marwick and Ruth Morris on Nyckelharpa (both of Bellevue Rendezvous, amongst others). A Nyckelharpa is keyed fiddle, or "key harp", and is the national musical instrument of Sweden. It also sounds absolutely amazing when paired with fiddle and accordion - you wonder why every band doesn't use one!

From the opening seconds of their first set of tunes, eyebrows in the audience shoot upwards, a stunned silence, simply asking "How good is this?". There's no need to answer as a delightfully lazy klezmer changes pace to a reel and finally charges through an Eastern European tinged march. In three short tunes Firelight Trio have created the soundtrack to an entire film, something animated, perhaps, something foreign and arty.

This feeling of providing a soundtrack weaves its way through their whole set. Prinsen's Polska is stately and verges on baroque classical; you can picture elegant, mirrored rooms, chandeliers rainbowing candlelight to the darkest of corners. It is achingly beautiful.

So too is The Radical Road/Roeselare. Two tunes played on the St George's Steinway and both misty, tender and wildly Romantic (with a capital R). These are tunes to tramp the Autumnal streets of (their hometown) Edinburgh to, tunes of blasted battlefields and evocation.

There is a vital seam of Eastern European celebration throughout the Firelight Trio's set. Balkan Polska combines a high, urgent battle between fiddle and accordion and then a lush plunge into something deeper and fuller. Motl Reyder’s Klezmer Set embraces the musical history of Ukraine and is woozy and delirious. Morris and her Nyckelharpa casting circular patterns around some astonishing fiddle playing.

It is no surprise that the Firelight Trio leave the stage bathed in the warmest of glows.

Firelight Trio RnR ****

If there can be such thing as a folk supergroup, this collective would get my vote. Consisting of Gavin Marwick (fiddle, Ruth Morris (nyckelharpa) and Phil Alexander (accordion, piano), together they are a tight musical unit covering Scottish, Balkan, Polish and Jewish (klezmer) material, traditional and self-penned. The tunes cover a multitude of bases, from jigs and Swedish polskas to tangos, French waltz and reels.

The interplay between fiddle and nyckelharpa is a delight to hear and, when combined with the accordion of Phil Alexander, gives a fullness of accompaniment that is indicative of musicians that are earnest in their delivery and, more than owt else, having a whale of a time.

Perhaps the most touching track is the final, moody flourish of ‘Rooftop Chorale’, which leaves this listener uplifted and eager to press Replay. The combination of jazz phrasings with classical vibes is simply splendid. It’s great to hear a fully instrumental album that is a summation of how three musical giants can complement one another so that the output is seamless and satisfactory. Nice one.     Grem Devlin, RnR, January 2023.

Songlines ‘Top of the World’ CD March 2023:

FIRELIGHT TRIO Rating: ★★★★

Author: Kevin Bourke, Songlines, here

March/2023

A new trio featuring accordionist Phil Alexander (Moishe's Bagel), renowned Scottish fiddle player Gavin Marwick and Ruth Morris on the Swedish nyckelharpa, Firelight Trio's first album together is a rich and diverse mixture of European music. The eponymous album covers everything from skittish Swedish polskas and Scottish reels to lilting French waltzes and joyful jigs, from lively klezmer tunes to a lovely, sad remembrance of the fallen from the cataclysmic World War I battle at Passchendaele.

The eclectic nature of this exceptional record is evident right from the off, as ‘Chasen Senem’, which comes from the repertoire of Romanian-born cimbalom player Joseph Moskowitz, leads into two tunes from Marwick's (by all accounts extensive) Horizons tune collection, the sardonic ‘Filthy Lucre’ and ‘The Latvian's March’, a celebration of Latvia declaring independence from the Soviet Union, before the pell-mell ‘En Charrette / The Last Minute’ propels us across to France – and so on. This could actually all be a bit exhausting were it not so evocative and enchanting, a tribute to the obvious love and admiration the three have not only for the music but for each other. I’d be willing to bet that Firelight Trio will be a hoot live, after they launch this collection at Celtic Connections.

Songlines ‘Introducing’ interview available here

“Absolutely superb, thrilling and mesmerizing performance! A truly memorable concert and 100% enjoyable from toddlers to seniors.”

-Laura Pyrrö, cultural producer of Espa Stage, Helsinki, Finland

Fatea Album Reviews

Gavin McNamara, Fatea, here

It's very hard not to think about Europe and be desperately furious about loss when listening to this incredible album by Firelight Trio. It's stuffed with Latvian marches, French Chapelloise, Balkan Polskas, Ukrainian klezmer tunes and German jigs. At every turn it is joyous, deliriously uplifting, wildly inventive, it is breathtakingly beautiful, gently contemplative, wonderfully thoughtful. It is, in short, everything that makes European music so great.

Firelight Trio are made up of accordion player Phil Alexander (from Moishe's Bagel), remarkable Scottish fiddle player Gavin Marwick and Ruth Morris on Nyckelharpa (both of Bellevue Rendezvous, amongst others). All three possess a virtuoso's touch and, when they play together, the results are utterly transportive.

Such is the intricacy of the music, and the sympathetic way in which the instruments complement each other, that it is sometimes difficult to keep track of exactly what you are listening to. Firelight Trio have created a European bazaar where you want to grab everything, hold everything, listen to everything. Your attention is caught every which way, you follow your nose, colours snag your attention. Before you know it, you're lost, head swimming. Schicki Micki / Acrobats Bridge sees the violin tumbling and swaggering, all three instruments desperately trying to hold on to the tune as it whirls about.

Chasen Senem / Filthy Lucre / The Latvians March further sets the scene with perfection. Starting slowly before building and building, different European traditions colliding with one another, briefly brushing hands before gliding onwards. By the time the set ends with The Latvians March we are in a frenzy, Marwick's fiddle leads us on a right old merry dance. The nyckelharpa and accordion keep the foundations strong.

The spinning delirium only continues with En Charrette / The Last Minute. More fabulous dance music that pirouettes away, ducking into the crowd, always slightly out of reach but entirely worth chasing. Balkan Polska does something similar but this time the nyckelharpa of Morris becomes more obvious before it, too, is subsumed into a wild maelstrom.

The Berlin Jig starts as something that seems almost gentle, not at all the stereotypical view of anything that seedy Berlin has to offer. Instead, this jig is bright and cheerful, a walk through a flower-strewn park rather than a trip to a basement hung with red velvet drapes. Even with the bright melody throughout it still ends with the merest hint of melancholia, still hints that not everything can be carefree dances.

Motl Reyder’s Klezmer Set celebrates the Jewish communities of Ukraine, these tunes having been resurrected from the archives of Kyiv's Vernadsky's Library. Alexander and his accordion are the stars here, working hard, injecting a grooviness straight into our hearts, our souls, our dancing feet. Wages of Gin, too, is irresistibly danceable.

That's not to say that everything on this glittering jewelled box is upbeat and frantic. The Radical Road / Roeselare is misty and full of yearning, a requiem for the fallen, a long look backwards. It's the sort of tune that should be in a Jane Campion film. Equally soundtrack-y is Rooftop Chorale which starts with Alexander's tender piano before being launched high above the streets by Marwick's fiddle. The nyckelharpa, once again, keeping it grounded, stopping the whole thing just spinning off into the sky.

If, in the future, we are to be without our European friends the Firelight Trio are obviously determined that we never forget them.

Firelight Trio - Higher Plain Music review

By Simon Smith, April 30, 2023, here

There is something wonderfully geographic and travelogue-like about the self-titled debut from Firelight Trio. Gavin Marwick brings the fiddle, Ruth Morris the nyckelharpa and Phil Alexander the accordion and piano. Between them, they travel the European continent in search of folk songs known and forgotten in this bountiful return to the very roots of folk music.

Across the album’s 11 tracks, we embrace the Klezmer side of folk with full abandon, visit the Scottish Highlands, enjoy a few Polska, jigs and pop to Latvia too. Everything that comes from the trio feels effortless and flowing. Some of the tunes required research to bring back from the dead, whilst others are originals such as ‘Rooftop Chorale’ which closes the main album in a reflective and quiet mood. Just don’t expect to stop jigging most of the way there!

I’m not an academic so I don’t understand all the musical intricacies on display from a historical context but I love a good folk dance and this album is chock full of them. The complex accordion, fiddle and nyckelharpa in ‘The Wages of Gin – Java St Andrews’ is just as dangerous as it is effervescent. The way the music pivots and evolves like an endless pirouette is something to admire. Elsewhere ‘Schicki Micki – Acrobats Bridge’ mixes French and Yiddish flair like a country pub celebration. ‘The Berlin Jig’ feels so homely and warm, whilst the rigid and colder ‘Balkan Polska’ balances romanticism and authority on a dime. It’s the interplay between Gavin, Ruth and Phil that wins you over. Their arrangements and playing are interwoven in such a way, you’d never realise it’s only three of them – it sounds like a much larger band at work.

There are a couple of real standouts for me. The first is ‘The Scottish Set’ which weaves four separate songs together with astounding dexterity. The fiddle work on show energises to a fever-pitch towards the end and the set is so satisfying to listen to, it leaves you breathless and with a beaming smile. Interestingly, the other standout is the yearning and longing of the baroque romantic piece ‘The Radical Road – Roeselare’. The piano-based piece turns into a passionate affair with lush intertwined fiddle and nyckelharpa sounding like their own string quartet. It is one of the most melodically strong pieces on the album because it takes its time getting to the bold motifs, whereas many of the other pieces are feelings and emotions first.

For anyone who enjoys traditional European folk – this is a top-tier recommendation. Firelight Trio have brought unknown traditional songs back to life in technicolour and it’s a joy to listen to. The original pieces hold their own too – you’d never know which was which. That shows just how well-researched and structured the craft of songwriting in the trio is. All these songs could be from the 17th or 18th century right through to the early 1920s. They sound timeless and effortless and full of life and that’s the best version of folk we can ask for.