It’s always super nice to discover by chance artists you have never heard of and find out they’re great! That’s what’s happened to me this week when I came across the North American fiddle/cello combo of Jocelyn Pettit and Ellen Gira. They are 2024 Canadian Folk Music Award Winners so it’s high time I became aware of them!
This combination of instruments unavoidably brings to mind cellist Natalie Haas’ collaborations with Alasdair Fraser and her fiddler sister Brittany, but Jocelyn and Ellen have their own sound and approach, maybe a bit more direct and robust – and they both sing, very well too.
On their two albums together, Jocelyn and Ellen cover bases from Celtic to American to something a bit Scandinavian and then tunes that are just theirs. All It Brings (2023) featured mostly trad and cover tunes, while the 11 tunes on the brand new Here To Stay are all originals. All It Brings is very good in its own right and I recommend it as an excellent trad album, but Here To Stay I want to comment on at length, particularly because of the tunes all being their own.
I was won over from the first seconds of the album, as Bellechasse with its great melodies and that Canadian galloping foot percussion put a bounce in my day and a smile on my face right away 😃
Not to mention the quality of playing, of course, as they are the kind of musicians who can play amazingly and project a good time and fun simultaneously. And when, on the seconds track, Passport to Mettabee, their beautiful vocal harmonies appeared to enrich the great groove of the piece, I had to surrender for real.
The next track, Rothiemurchus, offers a nice hybrid of chamber folk and Americana – or that’s what it sounds like to me, even though the titular place is in Scotland. As a tune, it reflects perfectly Jocelyn and Ellen’s effortless versatility.
And no more spoilers now, you get the picture, I’m sure, and the rest of the album is as good as the opening trio of tunes. I’m simply happy to have discovered their music that’s grounded and rootsy and sophisticated and ambitious all at once; this is music for my happy times – and for days when I need a mood lift, too. I look forward to exploring Jocelyn’s solo albums in a little while, too! Such good music here…
FolkNotes 