Hello, Goodbye

Celebrating 25 years as a professional musician, multi-instrumentalist John McCusker teams up with a cast of musician friends who have been by his side over much of that time to launch the studio he has built in the bothy adjoining his house in the Scottish Borders with Hello, Goodbye, a collection of a dozen tune sets.

Written, for the most part, while McCusker was on tour with Mark Knopfler's band, the songs were sung into his phone and worked on later. They reconfirm McCusker's way with a melody that's easy on the ear. There's a good variety of pacing and rhythm, with the opening ‘Calendar Boys’ serving as a kind of overture, or scene-setter, as its atmospheric wordless singing gives way to muscular bass and percussion, courtesy of Ewen Vernal and Shooglenifty's James Mackintosh, before it develops into a spirited jig.

John McCusker's fiddle is the dominant voice in arrangements that also feature mandolin, guitar, melodeon, accordion, pipes and whistle and the general feeling is of a companionable Transatlantic Sessions-style get-together.