Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There will always be those that are thankfully drawn together from different walks of life and from seemingly dissimilar backgrounds and to whom the world takes heed of for their ability to play together as if they had grown up in each other’s pockets, that the music they make is born of tight childhood reminisce and times spent as teenagers making plans.

Whilst we often are pulled to the bands who come out of their parent’s garage, or have spent time in each other’s bedrooms practising for the day when that one song about their life reflects in the heartbeats and minds of the audience, so too should we see those who come together over distance, over obstacles and water, the islands who become a great community, who find appreciation in the moment of discovery of another soul who loves the same as them.

The islands of Scotland have produced many a fine band and musical artist, but it is those same islands that give birth to mist filled legends, their proximity to the sea a gateway to unearth and encounter and in Beinn Lee’s true islands heritage, that music is undeniably one that makes the heart swell with passion, one that the tracks of Osgarra are a rip-roaring sound of beauty, conquest of distance and the meeting of minds.

The 11 tracks that make up Osgarra are filled with the image of a deep, cleansing breath, the ripples from the final storm crashing against the rocks of the islands of Scotland, making way the possibility of a new beginning, the connection between heart and mind fulfilled as the air blows all the negativity away.

For the players on this particular album, Anna Black, Angus John Macinnes, Padruig Morrison, James Stewart, Michael Steele and Mairi Therese Gilfedder, Osgarra possibly represents presence, a belonging in the world, one to which the islands of any country perhaps feel rightly aggrieved to be left of, certainly not always in the thoughts of those who visit the big cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. In the tracks Begin Again, Moladh Eubhal, Uibhisteach, Well Done Dancers! and the glittering, powerful and aptly named Finale, the six players come together and create a moment of music that is divine.

Just because you didn’t grow up together, doesn’t mean that you cannot have had the same experiences which make you breathe the same air and have the same dream of connection; Osgarra might not mean anything to those without a Gaelic tongue, but if it means anything, then it should mean connected.

Ian D. Hall