Matt Carmichael: Dancing With Embers

Scottish tenor saxophonist Matt Carmichael captured attention with his first album Where Will The River Flow (Porthole Music, 2021), garnering over 8 million streams. His second album, Marram (Edition Records, 2022), developed his blend of jazz and Scottish folk, winning "Best Album" in the Scottish Jazz Awards. He follows this with Dancing With Embers, which changes focus to concentrate on song structure and a sense of intimacy, rather than improvised solos, resulting in an album that is more biased towards folk than jazz.

Unusually for a saxophonist, all the 12 tracks began life with Carmichael improvising at the piano, going so far as to bookend the album with two tracks in which his piano leads: "A Distant Glow" and "Woodsmoke." That could be considered a strange move when the album features his long-standing group, which includes pianist Fergus McCreadie. The remainder of the band is made up of bassist Ali Watson, drummer Tom Potter and fiddler Charlie Stewart. He further expands the musical palette with guest vocalist Rachel Sermanni, piper Brìghde Chaimbeul and guitarists Chris Amer and Innes White.

Many of the musical influences, together with the album imagery, come from Lochranza on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. Others have also found inspiration in this location, with the village setting inspiring Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lord of the Isles. There is a laid-back, beach campfire vibe to many of the tracks. "Flint," featuring the full band, augmented by White's guitar, opens with a loose, folky sax refrain, which gradually gathers focus and pace. The uplifting "Road from the Sea" is a nod to a track on Marram, "Road to the Sea." Piano, sax, guitars and fiddle combine and weave around a bright folk melody.

Scottish piper Brìghde Chaimbeul adds her expertise on small pipes and revisits the melody of the opening track on "Beckoning Night," but it is her interplay with the others on the upbeat "Aglow" that adds real sparkle, making the track come alive. "Kite" is another standout. This track has more of a studio feel, subtly driven by Watson and Potts; McCreadie's melodic piano leads to a terrific Carmichael sax exploration tinged with melancholy.

There is a more European identity to "Blue Hour," which has more of a darker, brooding mood as Carmichael explores over a repeating piano motif. Rachel Sermanni adds wordless vocals to "Mangata" and combines them with sax to capture the idea of calmness and tranquillity. Guests White and Amer weave their guitar textures around sax and fiddle on the gentle title track, which captures the flickering campfire atmosphere.

The album's mostly stripped-back feel creates a warm glow with the guests adding depth and texture to the gently lilting nature of many of the tunes. The focus is strongly on melody and less on joint improvisation; there is a singer-songwriter feel with a subtle blend of lyrical jazz that is inviting, intimate, frequently charming and distinctly Scottish.