|
Mention the Isle of Skye and what do you think of?
Cosy tourist traps with tartan tablemats and Jimmy Shand bar tapes? Tasteful Run Rig sleeves of mountain dwarfed crofts in sepia tint? Or maybe patronising Sunday supplements who continue to perpetrate stereotypes laid down by 'Whisky Galore'? Well tell me this. What about that big slab of concrete they've just erected across to the mainland? What about the possibility there's more to the island than half-cut ceilidh bands charging drunkenly through 'Mairi's Wedding'? What about the fact that after all, this is 1996? Sounds like you need a wake up call. In which case I recommend McGill's 'State of Flux' at a thousand decibels. A throbbing techno assault with an irresistible stuttering siren hookline, quite simply the most inspiring four and a half minutes of music ever to resonate from the Misty Isle since time immemorial. More than that, it's enough to make you stage your own one-man tribal gathering at the foot of the Cuillin hills, leaping through the heather in nothing but a sock hat and kilt until you collapse in a state of gibbering overwhelmed ecstasy. Or indeed a state of flux! This sublime electro symphony is one of the many dizzy heights to be experienced on 'The Darker Wing', McGill's pulsating debut CD, an album that seizes Skye by its cultural sporran and drags it kicking, screaming, ranting and most definitely raving into the next millennium. From the silhouette of the notorious bridge forming the cover's sinister backdrop to the opening venomous diatribe 'Greedgnome', McGill throws down the gauntlet of the restless native. An angry young man he may be, but McGill's talent is to combine the oldest traditions of protest singing with the sonic ingenuity of Leftfield or Orbital. No more so than on 'Land', a tempestuous rebel rouser sung with the passion and ferocity of a claymore wielding clansman - "as the bulldog savages the lion, truly is a miracle of hate." This isn't Sasanach fearful paranoia but the intelligent voice of mid 90's braveheart concerns. Arguably the album's focal point, 'Land' presents a rally cry for the bridge generation highlighted by McGill's ironic aside "don't burn your bridges, don't even build them" and the added inclusion of 'Tìr', a duplicate version sung in Skye's native tongue where he emerges frothing like a Gaelic Jaz Coleman. The instantly accessible 'Maya' with its laid-back pop melodies and the haunting beauty of 'Spirit Walker' display an altogether different side to McGill's musical temperament whereas the instrumentals allow him free reign to indulge in endless innovations over addictive backbeats. 'Deep7' with its hypnotic incidental theme qualities, the awesome 'State of Flux' and the closing funk disco campery of 'Double Dance'. Tunes of glory, one and all. McGill's eclectic debut collection defies pigeon-holing, least of all by himself. Instead he takes to music like a joyrider on the open road, living for the minute, veering from the fast lane of commercial pop, skidding through lyrically darker patches and exploding on the hard shoulder of dance. With 'The Darker Wing' Skye has finally been given a fresh voice. A voice that isn't blinkered by greed or sentiment, a voice that blows the cobwebs off the past and looks to the future, a voice far more sincere than that of other stadium rockers who lay claim to its territory. Finally Skye has a voice it can be proud to share with the outside world. That voice is McGill. |
