One

This album is a new venture for Cape Breton fiddle supremo Natalie MacMaster, in two respects. First, she has recorded with her husband and fellow fiddler Donnell Leahy for the first time. Second, and more significantly, MacMaster and Leahy worked with legendary rock producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed) to create a new sound. This relationship probably explains the stadium feel on much of this record. Production values are big and bold: reverby fiddle tunes (‘Hector the Hero’), heavy bass and drums (‘Fiddler's Despair’) and guitar-hero licks (‘Wedding Day Jig’). The fat, rich sound works well at times – openers ‘St Nick's’ and ‘The Chase’ are rollicking tunes propelled by a full band – but the pop-style production gives the record a sheen that often drains the intimacy from the music.

It's an altogether oddly mixed set. Where tunes are kept acoustic, as they are in the second part of the album, One blooms. The bouncing honky-tonk ‘Tribute to Buddy’ (referring to MacMaster's late uncle), is a glorious runaway, fiddle-led jape. Sets of reels such as ‘Clog Medley’ bounce along in finest old-fashioned Cape Breton style. Fiddle performances are exemplary, with the muscular, rhythmically irresistible playing really shining, on ‘Pastiche for Anne’ especially.