Talisk: More Than Just a Scottish Folk Trio

The Scottish band Talisk knows how to get them on their feet despite very hot weather at the 2019 Philadelphia Folk Festival. Photo by Michael Stokes, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Last Friday,—it was March the fourth, o, ye people of the future—I took my immediate family and my parents to a concert in Concord, New Hampshire. The event was meant to satisfy a number of needs. 

Firstly, my father’s birthday was the day before. He has imparted to me more wisdom than I can quantify or tell, but one of his prime wisdom nuggets is that live music is almost always a great thing. When it’s not it’s at least a great story.

Secondly, my boys, 14 and 12, had never been to a concert that didn’t involve one or the other of them performing with school mates. So never a real concert.

Thirdly, the show was recommended to us by my eldest’s bagpipes teacher, so it satisfied a growing interest of his which has infected his brother, who is working on his brogue.

Seriously.

The performers in question were Scottish folk trio Talisk. Hear me out, though.

This isn’t just your usual neighborhood acoustic Scottish folk trio, all jigs and reels and hornpipes, no: This Scottish folk trio is fronted by an Anglo-Iranian Glaswegian concertina player. “Play” is the wrong word, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The Scottish folk front is well played in their albums, particularly the latest, Dawn.

There is another side to this band, however, which comes out in their live shows like an accidental dose of caffeine hitting a charming toddler. The kick drum comes in. The band plays with some magic at their feet. The lights swirl. The three people stage left are dancing like this a rave in a farmer’s field in 1990. My mother says to me, “I forgot drunk people danced like that!” Mohsen Amini shreds the concertina. Benedict Morris—who took over for the original fiddle player mere months ago—is the master of his instrument. My wife, a casual violinist of no mean talent herself, hated him: “I mean, he can just pick off harmonics whenever he wants!” Guitarist Graeme Armstrong provides the necessary grounding, be it sweet guitar textures, insistent driving framing, or straight up four to the floor stomp box kick drum.

The virtuoso playing on stage is turned into the Scottish folk equivalent of frantically tweaked acid house of decades ago. The band desperately tried to hype the crowd. I, at 45, was in the youngest quartile at the show, but by the end there was dancing by more than just the three drunk stage left and my eldest was standing—front row, balcony—clapping along with the beat and taking in every beautiful, flowing texture.

He picked out a t-shirt and when he bought a CD the band insisted on signing it for him.

This is a working band trying—nay, insisting—on making it on the road, sounding like no one else and making fans a handful at a time.

After the show they packed themselves into a car or van for their next show, somewhere in Massachusetts.

If you find them near you, give them a shot.

If not, do check out their studio albums. While they do not convey the frantic live energy of the band, their incredible musicality is well worth your time.