WOMAD

The Borderers

From Australia

The roots of Australian music are deep and tangled. The continent has its own indigenous music, that of the Aboriginal peoples, which is being developed and revised by acts such as Yothu Yindi and Kev Carmody (who appeared at WOMAD's Rivermead festival in July). It is also a land filled with European music, the legacy of generations of migrants who brought little with them but their ingenuity and their culture. That has been transmuted in some cases, and kept alive in others, as with Mara!, another band with long WOMAD connections. Their mixture of Serbo-Croat and medieval traditions gets more of an airing in Australia than it does near the Adriatic these days. The Borderers take up the flag of another European style, Celtic roots, bringing their own passion to the music and structuring it in a popular, accessible fashion. The group is led by a Scotsman, Jim Paterson, and an Irishwoman, Alex, with a basic line-up of bodhran, whistle, guitar and vocals. The duo also use other musicians (keyboards, drums and bass) to flesh out the sound. Rob Mills has programmed keyboards for Michael Jackson; Darren Moyes is another Scot, and a drummer with a long pedigree in bands north and south of the border; while bass player BJ Thomas has had an equally enduring career in Australia.The group picked up fistfuls of awards in Australia for their last CD, 'Independents Day' and this year they have been in the studio with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra to record an official Adelaide Christmas song. They've played at two WOMAD festivals in Australia, and this weekend marks their first UK date with us. Last year, they made their first visit to the UK, playing at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, and this year they've also been a hot ticket at the Edinburgh Festival.