The House Sisters, Leith Folk Club

Published on Wednesday 29 July 2009 10:00

The House Sisters **** Leith Folk Club

IT is almost a year ago since The House Sisters last played the Leith Folk Club. Back then, the young, all-female trio rightly earned themselves a four-star review; last night, the up-and-coming folk band put on another magnificent display that showcased their individual and collective talents to fine effect.

These three gifted musicians – Carly Blain (fiddle/piano), Rachel Cross (fiddle), and Kira Slater (vocals/piano), all in their early twenties, and who all hail from the Borders and Perthshire respectively – first met at Newcastle University whilst studying on the Folk Degree course, and in the years since have polished and buffed their craft into something rich and deserving.

Take Kira Slater for example. Whenever she sings, she leaves everyone in the room feeling as if she's singing just for them. Pure and captivating, while her piano playing is both fluent and unfussy – but it's the dual fiddle playing of Blain and Cross that gives the trio their trademark sound. The chemistry between them is virtually telepathic, to the point where they finish each other's parts like some old couple finishing each other's sentences. Whether it's reels, jigs, songs or Strathspeys, they could even wring emotion from a shopping list if you told them to write a tune about it.

As Blain rightly said early on: "This is a tune to get the bows flapping." And she wasn't kidding. Following on from the steady lilt of Heilan Laddie, the trio quickly stepped from a waltz to some Norwegian tunes, before taking time out to pay a quick whistle stop to Texas and Tennessee just to remind us they can nail down a good ol' country tune, as well.

Devoid of any hint of self-consciousness, all three girls certainly know how to hold an audience as well as make them laugh. And when the time came to introduce The Dirty Bee – a jaunty wee number that tells the story of a naked Scottish piper who accidentally gets stung in the nether regions – both audience and band struggled to keep a smile from their faces when it came to the "G minor" section of the song; the part where said bagpiper comes into painful contact the Bee.

The second half went much the same way, tunes from Blain and Cross' native Borders standing out amongst a particularly impressive rendition of Dusty Springfield's Going Back, courtesy of Slater. The forty-five minutes simply flew by, and when Cross announced the last set of tunes, shouts from the back to play for "another couple of hours yet" sadly didn't filter its way down to the girls at the front.

Still, ninety minutes in such talented company – and, let it be said, such comfy surroundings as the Leith Folk Club – is a rare treat. One can only hope that The House Sisters go on to acquire an agent in order to bring their music to a wider, broader audience. If there's any justice, they'll be knocking on the door of the Sisters' House soon enough.