This week Karine Polwart shared a cover version of Madison Cunningham’s ‘Life According to Raechel’ and encouraged her followers to go see the young musician live at this Celtic Connections show.
Before the gig itself began, I spotted no less than three well-known Scottish musicians taking their seats in the stalls.
Later the excellent support act Louis Abbott would ask if there were any musicians in the audience and it seemed like more than half the crowd raised their hand (incidentally Louis confessed he had already bought a ticket for the gig before he was added as support).
So it seems then that Madison Cunningham is your favourite musician’s favourite musician.
Andrew Bird, her friend and recent collaborator on a Buckingham/Nicks cover album, has described Madison as ‘one of the most talented…maybe the most talented musician I’ve encountered.’
Madison’s music defies real categorisation. She won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album in 2023 but doesn’t identify with that genre, and her previous nominations for Americana and Roots performance are not really accurate either. You can trace more of an indie experimental folk thread in her music, with influences from Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Fiona Apple or someone like PJ Harvey being more clearly heard.
For this show Madison began solo playing on the piano, her back to the audience, dressed in white like a ghost from another time. Her haunting vocals offered us songs which she would afterwards describe as ‘little prayers’ and ‘moments of peace’ among the devastation of recent world events.
In fact the majority of the set consisted of brand new, unreleased tracks from an album she has recently completed. After the fires which burned her hometown of Los Angeles she shared that it felt right to play mainly new songs, with many having an appropriately introspective, even somber mood, perhaps also reflecting her recent divorce.
I will confess that I hadn’t listened to Madison Cunningham’s music much before this week, so the fact she played mainly new songs didn’t detract from my personal enjoyment. In fact, I found it interesting to see an artist feeling out the new songs in real time, creating a uniquely cohesive musical atmosphere. Of the new songs she introduced ‘Mummy’ and ‘Take Two’ stood out.
Of course the crowd were ecstatic when she did play some of her old material, especially ‘All I’ve Ever Known’ and the encore of ‘Life According to Raechel’, a song about the loss of her grandmother which reduced me to tears with its interwoven expression of pain and love.
The performance had a cinematic, majestic quality to it, filling the silence of the theatre with an otherworldly musical presence. The standing ovation was deserved, and even those who might have preferred to hear more of their familiar favourites couldn’t argue with the quality of the music they were gifted from Madison and her excellent band.
Thank you to Celtic Connections for the review ticket. Further information about the festival can be found here:
https://www.celticconnections.com
Photo by Kris Kesiak with permission from Celtic Connections.
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