Out of the Bag is a mixed bag of loosely Celtic-based instrumental World music. This Scottish quintet blends a number of disparate musical elements into an effective musical melange. Elements in the mix include Indian strings and percussion, Scottish pipes, poly-rhythmic jazz beats and swinging Balkan/klezmer tunes.
Nearly all the 11 tracks were written singly by Dick Lee, Fraser Fifield and Nigel Richard. A couple were co-written by the group as a whole, and one, “King of Laois,” is traditional.
Celtic-World Beat blends are often something of a muddle, but Bag o’ Cats mostly avoids that trap with strong melodies, crisp production and emphasis on one or two instruments at a time. Some of the tracks are over-produced, notably “Raven,” a lyrical piece that misplaces its melody in the multi-tracking toward the end.
Nigel Richard plays most of the stringed instruments here (Rick Standley is on electric and acoustic bass), and he usually sticks to the cittern, rather than the bouzouki or mandolin more commonly found in Celtic bands these days. Its timbre is well-suited to the music but just different enough to catch your ear, and Richard picks out some catchy, driving riffs, particularly on the aforementioned “Raven.”
The other instruments that sonically dominate the disc are Lee’s clarinets and soprano sax, and Fifield’s border pipes. “Inverleith Park” uses layered whistles and clarinets in the first section, which give way to the pipes, with their buzzing drone like a hurdy-gurdy. This tune has a strong Celtic feel, with some detectable Middle Eastern influence, especially in the slurred clarinet and whistle notes.
Some of the other tunes like “Making Hay” and “Itsno Reel” are more jazzy, with strong bass lines and klezmer-like melodies carried by the clarinet. Lee uses a bass clarinet to very good effect on several tracks. The soprano sax is a little less welcome, sometimes lending a New Age air to the proceedings.
The band frequently uses unusual combinations of instruments for startling effects. The final track, “Basant Muchari,” includes Richard’s manditar (a homemade combination of mandolin and sitar), recorder and pipes. The introductory section of this long suite sounds like I imagine a Bollywood film score must sound, slightly jazzy, with the manditar’s drone behind vaguely classical guitar-like picking. In one part of the suite, the manditar, recorder and pipes are all carrying the melody in unison, as if the great Italian Ennio Morricone had arranged it for the score of a “tandoori Western” film.
The liner notes are rudimentary, and the CD’s cover art is in contention for the ugliest of the year.
(Greentrax, 2001)
