The Easy Club – Skirlie Beat

REL Records, (RELS 483, 1987)

This album (and the percussion-heavy title track) is named after a peculiarly Scottish concoction, skirlie. Like the dish, the Easy Club’s music is a mix of very Scottish ingredients with other flavours. There’s a rock tinge to the mining disaster song, “Augengeich”, while the band’s version of Ewan MacColl’s classic “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” features some very lovely chromatic harmonica. There’s even the surprise inclusion of an old Kenneth McKellar hit, “The Song of the Clyde” – of course adapted to suit the Easy Club’s unique style. The vocals and instrumental playing are impeccable as ever, and the eclectic arrangements are still a joy even in these days when the likes of Bellowhead have rendered genre-mixing folk quite normal.