Kim Carnie – Edinburgh Tradfest 2023

“Voice sweet with smokey edges, dynamic yet smooth, Kim Carnie makes something special of everything she sings.” Edinburgh Tradfest 2023 continues to impress.

📍 Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 4tht May 2023
🕖 Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes (one interval)
👥 Featuring: Kim Carnie
👥 Band: Lauren MacColl, Innes White and John Lowrie
🎂 Parental Discretion
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Audio Induction Loop

Gaelic singer of the year 2021, Kim Carnie, played her first solo gig in Edinburgh this 4th May as part of Edinburgh Tradfest 2023, and what lucky souls that packed audience at the Traverse were.

Her debut solo album ‘And So We Gather’ released in 2022 formed the body of her 2 hour set, alongside numbers plucked from commissions past, and the great Gaelic songbook. Deep in the lowlands as she was, a predominantly Gaelic language set might be expected to struggle for purchase. Such are her talents, and those of her band, that the opposite was true. I expect a few attendees may have typed ‘Gaelic’ into Duolingo the morning after. After all, if you’ve enjoyed a concert so very much and only understood 20% of the lyrics, why not look into that remaining 80%?

When I was growing up in Dundee, my only regular brush with Gaelic music was the televised Royal National Mòd every year. Whilst there was plenty of excellence on show, I don’t recall ever hearing anything quite as uniquely lovely as Carnie’s instrument. Voice sweet with smokey edges, dynamic yet smooth, Km Carnie makes something special of everything she sings.

This isn’t only a product of technical excellence, but just as crucially a talent for making herself understood with or without a shared language. When singing ‘Tha mi sgìth de luchd na Beurla’ there was more than enough sassy weariness to convey its meaning (I’m tired of English speakers). There’s a deep and sweet melancholy laced through Laoidh na h-Oidhche (Song of the Night), Carnie’s gorgeous setting of Sileas Na Ceapaich’s hymns.

Carnie is also a delightful host, an enthusiast of her chosen art delighted with the opportunity to share what she loves. It’s a pleasure to be in her company as she provides snippets of context between songs, how she found them, or why she wrote them. It’s an earnest, sweet, and good-humoured spell she weaves, sufficient to charm an audience with a history lesson about the Keppoch Murder longer than the associated heartbreakingly lovely – song Murt Na Ceapaich (The Cape Massacre).

The artist’s self-penned English language numbers prove another string to her bow. ‘She Moves Me’ has all the melodic love-song hallmarks required to dominate the Radio 2 playlists, whilst ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’ would be an pretty addition to anyone’s post break-up misery fest. On the evidence of her work so far, therefore, one might suspect her muse to be Cupid…but I’m sure there’s much more to come.

However it’s not all Gaelic death and English love, far from it. Her setting of the walking song ”Nighean Sin Thall’ (That Girl over there) edges towards the funkier realms of Folk, an irresistible invitation to walk and bop. My personal highlight was ‘Chan eil a’ Chùis a’ Còrdadh Rium’ (I Don’t Like The Matter), an up-tempo, intricate story of one man’s attempt to sell his cow, and avoid his debtors.

Of course, Kim Carnie did not play alone, and in this case was joined by fiddler Lauren MacColl, guitarist Innes White and pianist John Lowrie. The three made a tight band, accomplished musicians in their own right, and sensitive accompanists. MaColl is a wizard on the strings, Lowrie injects meaning into each stroke, whilst White offers a melodic, and versatile rhythmic engine.

So there we are, another stellar concert at this year’s Edinburgh Tradfest 2023. What a coup to host Kim Carnie’s first solo Edinburgh gig, and how lucky that Traverse audience for being there to witness it. Enthusiasm, skill and talent might not guarantee any artist a triumphant career, but when you can bring an audience to a standing, and rapturous ovation, the signs are pretty good.