{"id":41731,"date":"2009-10-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/four-on-the-floor\/"},"modified":"2009-10-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-11T00:00:00","slug":"four-on-the-floor","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/four-on-the-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Four On The Floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

For awhile, my friends were suspicious of my obsession with Scottish art. The movie Trainspotting <\/i>was a permanent fixture on my DVD player, a book of Robert Burns poetry lays across my coffee table, and the Old Blind Dogs album Four On The Floor <\/i>was in constant rotation on my stereo. There is great depth in Scottish artistic expression \u2013 from the usage of easygoing dialectal speech to the complicated themes of a people still living in an occupied country \u2013 and Four On The Floor <\/i>provides a rich, yet sometimes inaccessible, peak into Scottish tradition.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Consisting of both vocal and instrumental tracks, Four On The Floor<\/i>\u2019s vocal songs are rich in harmony, melody, and emotion. Although unabashedly rooted in the longstanding Scottish folk tradition, the songs are also quite diverse, from the haunting \u201cTerror Time\u201d to the pseudo-reggae \u201cBraw Sailing.\u201d The magical mix of earnest vocals, whistles, pipes, and fiddle is inspiring and monumental. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Three vocal tracks that especially impress me are \u201cThe Bonnie Earl O\u2019 Moray,\u201d \u201cBedlam Boys,\u201d and \u201cStar O\u2019 The Bar.\u201d \u201cThe Bonnie Earl O\u2019 Moray\u201d roots Old Blind Dogs steeply in the Scottish musical tradition. A well-known folk song, \u201cThe Bonnie Earl O\u2019 Moray\u201d laments the loss of a brave lover of Scotland\u2019s queen who died fighting for Scottish freedom. The somber melody recalls the memory of the Earl: \u201cHe was a braw gallant\/ He played at the ring\/ The bonnie Earl o\u2019 Moray\/ He micht hae been the king.\u201d <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Containing a beautiful whistle intro replicating the melody of the traditional \u201cThe Rights Of Man,\u201d heart-piercing vocal harmonies, entrapping acoustic guitar work, and an epic melody to match an epic story, \u201cBedlam Boys\u201d gives the listener a comprehensive experience of storytelling and song. Set against a musical backdrop of wonder and adventure, \u201cBedlam Boys\u201d tells of a woman who will stop at nothing to win the heart of her unrequited lover, Mad Tom of Bedlam. She proudly states, \u201cNo gypsy, slut, nor doxy\/ Shall take me Mad Tom from me\/ I\u2019ll dance all night and with stars fight\/ But the fray it shall become me.\u201d Sung by all men, \u201cBedlam Boys\u201d is a testament to character appropriation and powerful musical storytelling. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Lastly, David Robertson\u2019s \u201cStar O\u2019 The Bar\u201d paints a sincere, if misogynistic, view of love. In the chorus, the singing lover describes his long-lost soulmate as \u201ccoarse,\u201d \u201cheartless,\u201d and \u201cnot that bonnie.\u201d Sounds like a winner, huh? Nonetheless, the lover implores that \u201cbetter one who\u2019ll sit down with you\/ Sing a fine tune with you\/ Pass the glass round with you\/ Drink herself blind.\u201d She may not be pretty, but she sure is fun to drink with. Mixed with a flowing fiddle, pitch-perfect vocals, and a minstrel-waltz guitar, \u201cStar O\u2019 The Bar\u201d is the best song on the album.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

While Four On The Floor\u2019s <\/i>instrumental songs likewise offer the listener an important and enigmatic gift of Scottish musical tradition, they are far less accessible than the vocal tracks. Since all the instrumental songs are arranged as part of medleys, disconnect happens when one part of the medley outshines the others. This makes the medleys sound disjointed and unfocused. Take \u201cGoats,\u201d which mixes the traditional songs \u201cThe Maid That Tends The Goats\u201d and \u201cLord Of The Manor\u201d with Rory Campbell\u2019s \u201cInnes Campbell.\u201d While \u201cGoats\u201d and \u201cInnes Campbell\u201d are decent songs, their impact is significantly diminished by the wondrous \u201cLord Of The Manor.\u201d Each song would have been more enjoyable if presented individually. Also, the long, drawn-out Scottish medleys may seem repetitive and boring to non-Scottish listeners \u2013 this reviewer included.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Four On the Floor <\/i>gives its listeners the opportunity to experience the power of musical storytelling, a landscape of epic harmonies, and the depth and beauty of Scottish music and wordplay.\u00a0\u00a0 To quote \u201cBraw Sailing,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s braw drinking Glasgow beer\/ It\u2019s better drinking wine\/ But it\u2019s better to be in my love\u2019s arms \/ Where I have been many\u2019s the time.\u201d And it\u2019s better to be in my love\u2019s arms while listening to Old Blind Dogs. Especially if she is the Star O\u2019 The Bar.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":30092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8471],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41731","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-old-blind-dogs","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41731"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}