Catrin Finch 9/10/2015

Catrin Finch certainly has a wide-ranging musical palette. You sort of expect a 'traditional' Welsh harpist who was official harpist to the Prince of Wales to major on old mediaevel harp ballads but we first saw Catrin playing with Seckou Keita in a kora/harp duo. This tour was to promote her latest album 'Tides' and the band consisted of her, a string quartet, a double bassist and a tech guy who looped some harp stuff and played electronic drums. As usual her playing featured a lot of complex exciting harp playing but she also spent a fair amount of time at the piano and the whole feeling was this water/sea/weather vibe which was the them of the album. 'Storm Front was particularly dramatic but the whole thing fitted together in a very enjoyable way. She played 'Clair de Lune' somewhere in the gig and the string quartet did a number I loved ('Fellow Traveller' by John Adams) which was all tension and complex rhythms but mostly the harp cascaded melodies and rhythms in its inimitable way.