Any hiker knows that walking the main trail is—pardon the mixed metaphor — barely the tip of the iceberg. (Or perhaps scratching the surface? Is that better?) Regardless, the more fascinating and picturesque the journey, the more it merits repeat visits to find variations on whatever side trails and shortcuts there are to discover. And so, after taking us on their most rich folky excursion to date with The Shieling (2025), it seems that Fergus McCreadie and friends had still not shown us nearly everything their beloved Scottish landscape has to offer. Little surprise that such a fruitful session had another share of ideas that could not all fit on the album proper.
Whatever you might call their blend of snappy jazz and woodsy folk, its organic growth is…
Tag Archive: Fergus McCreadie
The fourth album by pianist Fergus McCreadie‘s trio is titled after a Gaelic word referring to a homemade shelter of stone and earth that protects shepherds during the summer pasturing season. Here, it’s an extended metaphor for the intimate cottage in Lochmaddy, in North Uist, in the Scottish Outer Hebrides where the band ferried from their Isle of Skye homes to record this set in five days with producer Laura Jurd.
Since releasing 2021’s Cairn, the trio — with bassist Dave Bowden and drummer Stephen Henderson — has delivered a nearly trademark sound that draws equally on contemporary jazz, spectral post-bop, and Scottish folk traditions. The later nature-themed outings — 2022’s Forest Floor and 2024’s Stream — further integrated…