Gigs with Laura jane wilkie

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Posted: March 17, 2025

Laura Jane Wilkie asked me to play guitar on her wonderful Vent album, so I did, and now we`re off to do some gigs, I love our duo, it brings out the best in my playing. We`ll be doing Vent tunes and trad tunes, some new Laura tunes and some new ones and old ones of mine.

Vent’ screams confidence from start to finish. There are surprises and delights throughout its nine tracks that will demand many listens, each bringing something new. KLOF magazine

Vent is gloriously free in its treatment of the original waulking tunes – many of which don’t properly emerge until well into their respective tracks .Ian Carr’s lithe acoustic guitar is often equally to the fore, though the two players intertwine beautifully in an unaccompanied duet in ‘The Sailor Has Good Chat’. The Strad

..her debut presents a dreamy trad arr synthesis of the Dransfields and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra * * * * mojo

See the concerts bit for where to see us!

A joyful cacophony!

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Updated: May 26, 2023

The Swedish summer spelmanstämma is a thing of wonder. A bad translation would be ” fiddlers meeting”, festivals where hundreds of musicians get together for a big jam, and a dance in the countryside in the sunshine, all day and often all night. Walking in to a spelmanstämma is a very unusual experience , the sound of a crowd of musicians ( not just fiddlers by the way) all playing different tunes simultaneously under trees, outside tents, beside lakes, on top of hills, on their own, in big ensembles or duos, a joyful cacophony! Because of the nature of unamplified music outdoors you can choose your channel as you get closer and the individual melodies become clear, and if you’re a musician you can choose which tune to join in with ( if you’re sensitive about it of course and don’t try and take over or play too loud).

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all of this is that I’ve got a few gigs coming up at these events -theres concerts too as a kind of side show, so Niklas Roswall and I will be at Ransäter Spelmanstämma and Delsbo Spelmanstämma, I`ll be at Bingsjö with Ethno Sweden ( I think I told you about that in a previous newsletter), and Burträsk up in Lappland as a duo with Maria Jonsson, playing tunes from that region. Ooh and there`s Korrö festival too with Ian Carr & The Various Artists trio-me and Maria and Staffan Lindfors-oh and I´ll be playing solo there too.

Other things to look forward to are Laura Wilkie´s wonderful solo record of Gaelic Waulking songs on fiddle and guitar with Sarah Hayes producing. I heard the rough mixes and it’s great.

Work continues on the new Ian Carr & The Various Artists record. It is an ever evolving process, in my cellar, with Maria Jonsson and Staffan Lindfors making everything better!

Steph Geremia will soon release her brilliant singing record, featuring Kris Drever, John McCusker, Alan Kelly, Eddi Reader, and moi!

I`ll tell you more about all of these things as they develop.

cabin fever

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Updated: April 18, 2023

You’ll be pleased to know i survived my skiing trip in the Dalarna mountains, not that there was a huge amount of skiing, what with me getting the flu and everything. However, guitar at the ready as always, i wrote a big tune called Cabin Fever and taught it to Jen Austin and Toby Shaer and we played it every night on our uk tour with the wonderful Heidi Talbot.

Which was lovely, it’s been many a year since I’ve played with Heidi so I was excited when she asked me to play with her last year at the Tonder Festival in Denmark, and we filled tent 1 with soul! Her music had grown so much in the time since I last worked with her, and she has great new material, including the great “Wandering Roads” a highlight of the recent gigs and her new record ” Sing It For A Lifetime”, produced by Dirk Powell from Louisiana. I had such a good jam with Dirk and his pal Cedric Watson( not to mention Michael McGoldrick on triangle) earlier this year, a 2 step that lasted for 20 minutes which drove the unsuspecting hotel bar drinkers wild, so much so that the bar manager had to tell us to shut up!

Celtic connections.

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Updated: January 27, 2023

We had a good time playing to the people of Glasgow! Simon Thoumire wrote this review of our gig, which we shared with the brilliant Madelaine Stewart Trio.

“It was great to head to The Drygate, on Friday 20th January to see The Madeleine Stewart Trio and Ian Carr and the Various Artists. 

First on was The Madeleine Stewart Trio who were playing tracks from their new album (due out April https://madeleinefiddle.bandcamp.com/). The trio have obviously been playing together for a long time as they are so in sync as musicians. Their material was a mixture of trad and contemporary compositions and had the audience swinging! I loved the band and I can’t wait to hear more from them.

I have followed the work of Ian Carr for over 30 years and he is one of the most inventive and wonderful of musicians. Ian is a one of the best acoustic guitarists ever and not many people get close to his inventiveness. Tonight Ian was playing with his band Ian Carr and the Various Artists who are Maria Jonsson (fiddle), Staffan Lindfors (bass), Laura Wilkie (fiddle) and Thomas Gibbs (piano). They were performing music from their latest album ‘I Like Your Taste In Music (https://iancarrmusic.bandcamp.com/album/i-like-your-taste-in-music). The band are so in sync with each other and make Ian’s music look easy (even when it isn’t). The set ebbed and flowed and highlights included Classic Car Week, The Flow Country and Sarah’s Waltz. The capacity crowd loved every minute of this concert and were even joining in with Ian’s classic tune Ghan Blenk! Hopefully Ian and band will be back in the UK very soon to perform to more audiences as everyone should get the chance to hear them!”