The escalating critical acclaim they have met with since their debut album release in 2007 has encouraged a steamroller of live shows and song releases by five-strong traditional music group The Outside Track. Unfortunately, The Outside Track’s productiveness has not been supported by an equivalent variousness of style. For those familiar with their music their performances at the Acoustic Music Centre were frustratingly same-y.
And they need not have been. Variously Canadian, Irish and Scottish, the five members of The Outside Track have a rich mixture of cultural traditions to draw upon. Indeed they hard-sell the uniqueness of their diversity. Yet if we take as an example their charity single Mountain Road, it is difficult to actually identify distinct cultural influences. Although ostensibly a Scottish version of Aisling beautiful-girl-equals-wild-mountain tradition, the song is mainly dominated by its chorus. This chorus, although typical in its pastoral nonsensicality, has been anglicised by having the polyphony of its many instruments reduced to a basic monorhythmic core. The virtuosity of the instrumentalists is disguised by their harmonisation and what is no doubt a hugely difficult piece ends up sounding like a catchy kid’s folk tune.
This is, perhaps, overly reductive. Norah Rendell who sings the song has a beautiful, clear voice and Cillian O’Dalaigh is a dab hand at his guitar. When he plucks his high notes in a duet with harpist Ailie Robertson they produce a charming high music box sound unlike any other. Mairi Rankin bravely pulls off a sustained spiccato sequence and although her technically brilliant tap dancing lacks some of the enthusiasm she otherwise has when introducing songs, this is made up for by the huge amount of fun O’Dalaigh clearly has while he is dancing.
Considering that the group have been together since they first met at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in 2005, it is unsurprising that they should fall into certain musical patterns – and any observable pattern can start feeling repetitive. Having said this, The Outside Track are clearly passionate about their project to make traditional folk music more mainstream. They are obviously talented musicians and we can remain firm in our confidence that given some exposure they might yet prove a band worth writing home about.
