Alastair Savage - Tunes from the River (2022)

Tunes From The River is Alastair Savage’s sixth album release and features music composed by him over the previous decade in a combination of live and studio recordings. This collection of melodies is the final piece of a planned trilogy of albums following the unaccompanied fiddle album ‘Alone With History’ (2016) and the contrasting ‘When Barley Reaches Shore’ (2018) which features his established collaborators Euan Drysdale (piano and guitar) and Iain Crawford (double bass). Both of those instrumentalists return for this release alongside a host of celebrated Scottish folk musicians including the legendary flautist Eddie McGuire and piper Rab Wallace from the Whistlebinkies band, woodwind virtuoso Ewan Robertson on a wide range of instruments, Perthshire fiddle ace Pete Clark and guest appearances from two celebrated Finns, Vilma Timonen on kantele and Timo Alakotila on piano. The sound is expertly captured by engineer Colin Stephen in a range of settings including the beautiful Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh as well as a few tracks recorded by Dougie Frew at Glasgow’s renowned venue The Old Fruitmarket. The title track ‘Tunes From The River’ is dedicated to the lives lost at the Clutha Bar helicopter disaster in Glasgow in 2013 whilst ‘The Rocks Of Kilchoman’ is equally dedicated to the fallen soldiers of HMS Otranto involved in a shipping disaster in 1918 off the Islay coast. Further tracks are inspired by the Isle Of Skye, historic sites in Lewis and Harris as well as Alastair’s Ayrshire homeland and past visits to the USA.