Fiddle Me This: Adrianna Ciccone’s “The Back of Winter”
There is something about fiddle music that gets me every time. I am not sure if it elicits some deep seeded emotion that is engrained in my brain because my lineage traces back to Ireland and Scotland or if I have just watched Braveheart one too many times…but regardless, I am infatuated with the fiddle lines that trace over the backdrop of a Celtic inspired fiddle tune. I don’t pretend to be any sort of connoisseur of fiddle music and to hear my try and play my wife’s old instrument that has been sitting in the closet for a few years is something I don’t wish on anyone’s ears, but I know what I like and what sounds good and this stuff is great.
There is something in the water over at Dimension Sounds in JP…or Dan Cardinal is just a beast of an engineer. Probably the latter, but everything that has his stamp on it has wowed me in some way. Adrianna Ciccone’s “The Back of Winter” is no different.
The recordings are crisp, the playing is first-class, and the towering fiddle lines of Ciccone’s playing bring you for a sky high ride that is just as beautiful as it is exciting and bracing. Words and lyrics and turns of phrase can be witty and easy to catch a listeners attention with. Words speak to people in that way. When the music leaps out of the arrangement and is able to make you feel something, now that is a special reward. These songs do just that.
Ciccone will be performing at The Burren on Feb 19th with her trio featuring Allison De Groot on banjo and Colin Cotter on guitar. Tickets for that show can be picked up HERE.
About the artist: Adrianna Ciccone is a fiddle player and step dancer from Canada and has been based out of Boston for the past four years. Her latest effort ‘The Back of Winter’, was recorded at Dimension Sound Studios in 2015, produced by Bruce Molsky and features many wonderful local folks (Allison De Groot, Neil Pearlman, Jenna Moynihan, Mairi Chaimbeul, Flynn Cohen). It won Instrumental Solo Artist of the Year at the 2015 Canadian Folk Music Awards.
