Elephant Sessions, Glasgow review: 'subtleties lost in the noise'

Elephant Sessions, Academy, Glasgow ★★★

As indie-folk heroes Elephant Sessions opened their set amid an eruption of samples, seismic rumbles and pulsating sci-fi lighting, I had to remind myself that I was listening to a Scots Trad Music Award-winning band. Since they formed as a largely acoustic outfit in the Highlands in 2012, Elephant Sessions have become a mighty beast indeed with their hard-driving fusion of folk, funk and electronica.

The evening’s sonorities had already been cranked up by an opening set from the folk-tinged synth rock of Lusa, a new project from Innes Strachan of Niteworks. Beth Malcolm’s powerful vocals were cusped in ringing keyboards, synthesiser washes and pummelling beats, which effectively obscured any lyrics.

There was a jubilant audience roar as Elephant Sessions hit the ground running, the mercurial pairing of Euan Smillie’s fiddle and Alasdair Taylor’s mandolin underpinned by guitar, bass and drums, with drummer Greg Barry also deploying an armoury of electronica. At times, Smillie and Taylor might play in tight unison – as in the title track of their current album, For the Night, before diverging to ring out over purposeful bass and drums, or fiddle flickering urgently over the pummelling beats while Taylor maintained a staccato riff.

There was the funky staccato of Is This a Vibe? with its brief, wistfully echoing slow fiddle interlude; or fiddle and mandolin scampering gleefully over the insistent stomp of Wet Field Day. Too often, however, the sound seemed unnecessarily overblown to this listener, finding the characterful and contrasting timbres of the deftly played fiddle and mandolin smothered at times by sheer volume, although there is no doubting the band’s ability to work up a powerful groove, not to mention audience excitement, going by the air-punching enthusiasm in the auditorium.

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