"Life at university should be about challenging the norm, looking for the strange in the familiar, the universal in the exotic, opening up boundaries and exploring the margins where borders are likely to form. And this is just what Fiddlesticks do with great skill and imagination...To hear the dunt of over a dozen fiddles…..was like revving a Porsche in your back yard: the power was addictive... gloriously rich evocative music"

Take 14 young fiddlers from UCC, teach them a whole load of tunes they’ve never heard before [mainly from Scotland and Cape Breton] buy them a few pints and put them in a recording studio, and this is what you get. The material is drawn from the best of traditional and contemporary fiddle tunes, the quantitiy is more than adequate [56 minutes], and the quality is astonishingly high.
Liz Doherty has been teaching Scottish and Canadian fiddle styles at UCC for about six years. Her excellent solo album come out on the Foot Stompin’ label in 1999, and she’s done a great job putting Fiddlesticks together. Their sound is generally very tight, with none of the sloppiness associated with fiddle rallies. The standard of playing is also remarkable for such young players: They swap confidently between Irish Scots Acadian and Scandinavian traditions…….. The tunes on Racket in the Rectory have been carefully chosen to give a wide range of styles and tempos. In 14 tracks there’s only one set of Irish reels: three sets of strathspeys and reels come from the Scottish tradition and preserved in Cape Breton, there are three sets of Shetland tunes, three more sets of Scottish tunes, a modern Finnish composition, and the rest are from various Noreth American traditions.
All are excellent examples of traditional music [old and new]: there’s a lovely set of Yell jigs, a spine-tingling rendition of of ‘The Unst Bridal March’ and spirited romps through John McCusker’s ‘Frank’s Reel’ and Jerry Holland’s ‘Iggy and Squiggy’. For a taster, try the first four tracks: all mini classics, spanning five different fiddle traditions……………….the achievments of Liz Doherty and Fiddlesticks on this recording are prodigious indeed, and in a year or two these young fiddlers will probably be playing solo with the best of them.

Former Bumblebee Liz Doherty lectures in traditional music at UCC and Fiddlesticks is an ongoing fiddle band made up of students there: not to be confused with the annual festival of the same name. Most of the tunes on this first recording are from Scotland or Cape Breton, rather than Ireland. Fairly straight renditions of dance tunes with piano backing alternate with more adventurous arrangements, which shift between unison and harmony, making spacious hypnotic music with more than a touch of Scandinavian about it. In fact, there’s only one actual Scandinavian tune. The Finnish composition Krapulakatrilli is a cracker. The album proves that a relatively formal, tightly arranged approach to playing traditional music can have plenty of energy and feeling, if it’s done with energy and understanding.

This set of tunes comes from the fiddle tradition of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Gallagher’s March is a 6/8 march from the Donegal tradition. My Friend Sharon was written by Clare McLaughlin, the great Scottish fiddle player from the band Deaf Shepherd.

Liz learned this tune during a trip to Finland a few years ago.

A slow tune from the island of Unst in the north of Shetland

This pipe march and strathspey come from the playing of a great family of musicians from Sydney Mines, Cape Breton - the Barra MacNeils.

traditional Shetland jigs

Taught to us by fiddler Jock Tyldesley

This is a set of tunes learned directly and indirectly from various Scottish sources

Some Shetland reels.

Andy Thorburn, multi-instrumentalist and piano player with Scotland’s fine fiddle band, Blazin’ Fiddles, wrote this slow tune.

Fiddlesticks favourites.

These three reels come from the playing of the brilliant French-Canadian band, La Bottine Souriante. We’re still working on the accompanying foot-tapping patterns!

This set of tunes was composed by fiddle maestro Jerry Holland from Cape Breton Island.

Liz learned the first tune from the playing of the Schryer Triplets from Ontario.