NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
MacALIAS
MacAlias by any other name
would sound as sweet
In this post-modern ironic age of icons and aliases, avatars and nemeses, knowing spooks and arch hobgoblins who've seen it all before and think it's passé, it's nice to know that some traditions are alive and well, especially when a pair of bonny red-haired lasses from way up north make a fleeting visit south to bring them to life.
And they don't come more traditional than the ballads of that famous Scotsman Rabbie Burns. Considering that this next January will be Burns' 250th anniversary, it seemed altogether fitting to get an early taste of some enchanting Scottish melodies under our belts. So the reception for Gill Bowman and Karine Polwart, otherwise known as MacAlias, at the King's Head in Allendale last Friday evening, was warm to begin with, and it grew warmer as the night went on.
The signature characteristic of MacAlias seems to be a capacity to mix up two songs, with interweaving melodies, and come out safely at the other end. We heard about four couplets of this sort of rendition, all very charmingly delivered, whether it was the weaving songs with wracked wrists of purest good-humoured welly, or a question of paternity and the de'il's excise man, or again a visitation to the cruel mother genre via 'The fine floo'ers of the valley' intriguingly juxtaposed with one of Northumberland's finest, 'Bonny at morn'.
I also liked the way MacAlias wove in numbers with a pop flavour, like 'The Sun Shines in Paradise', or humorous ones like 'John C. Clarke' with its gas-flavoured evocation of King of the Hill, or contemporary treasures like Annie Fox's 'The moon above the rooftops' or Gill's own 'I don't think she will stay', interspersed with some of Burns' best, 'The Gowden Locks of Anna' or even some that sounded like Burns, 'Gin I were a blackbird', but were really Gill's.
This programme out in the Dale, which started off rather tongue in cheek as the Women with Welly season, is really maturing, with some startling performances by some really gutsy women. These women of MacAlias, for example, were not afraid to finish their first set with a mining serfdom song, 'Girlhood days are done', that thrummed through the rest of the night in the intimate venue like a vibrating heart.
