ISLANDER – Original Cast Recording (Downloadable through Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and all major online music distributors)
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Musical Theatre Review’s Best Musical at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019, Islander is the story of two young girls: the first, Eilidh, left on Kinnan by her mum to look after her grandmother; the second, Arran, washed ashore there after making a terrible mistake. The inhabitants of the island include a pregnant mother, a newcomer scientist, a strange man who’s missing his garden gnome, among many others.
The first astonishing thing about this album is the fact that there are only two performers on stage. No orchestra or band, just two exceptionally talented ladies: Bethany Tennick and Kirsty Findlay. Between them they conjure up every character no matter what gender or age and it is genuinely amazing. Add to that the use of loop pedals to invoke the sound of instruments, backing vocals, etc and you have what must be an absolutely extraordinary visual piece.
The music by Finn Anderson evokes the sound of the western isles but with a modern twist. It sounds at once ethereal whilst also completely grounded. It is hard to explain but from the moment you start listening to this album you just want it to go on and on. There is a narrative throughout the piece covering climate change, the decline of population on the Scottish islands, but they are treated in such a magical way that you actually take in what is being sung – it’s remarkable.
Tennick and Findlay give a tour de force performance with all the differing characters but always with the most beautiful harmonies supplied by Anderson. The tracks are: ‘The Splitting of the Islands’, ‘There is a Whale’, ‘Video Call’, ‘Spikkin’, ‘There is a Girl’, ‘Same but Different’, ‘Finfolk Song’, ‘Answerphone’, ’There is a (baby) Girl’ and ‘New Horizons’.
One cast recording that is definitely being added to my collection and I would urge you to get online and revel in this fantastic piece of musical theatre.
Nick Wakeham
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