Northern Lights Airplay Reviews

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Airplay by Northern Lights is a fun album of trombone (Annie Whitehead) and concertina (Alistair Anderson)-led Baroque Jazz that oscillates somewhere between mood-full South African serenades and slightly electrified traditional Celtic/Gaelic/Norman songs, strongly reflecting the musical interests of the principals: Whitehead has a stellar her-story with Abdullah Ibrahim, Dudu Pukwana, Evan Parker, Chris MacGregor's Brotherhood of Breath and Louis Moholo's Spirits Rejoice. Anderson is a lecturer in the School of Arts & Cultures at Newcastle University (UK), the leading exponent of the English Concertina and a globally-recognised ambassador for British folk music.
Whitehead says about recording Airplay, "I took [Alistair's] tunes and put grooves and feels behind them. He took my tunes and added reels to them. It was a fascinating example of approaching music from different ways. He writes from the tune down, I write from the groove up, and the melody comes out of that." The result is a highly successful fusion of surprisingly complimentary styles by a very experienced outfit.