Live

If one fiddle player is good, does that make six better? If they're the women who make up the String Sisters, then the answer is an unequivocal yes. This album, recorded live in 2005 but just now seeing the light of day in the U.S. four years later (it received a 2007 release in Europe), brings together fiddlers from America, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Sweden on a diverse group of tunes and songs that highlight the connections between styles, as well as diversity, and showcases the fact that some of the best fiddlers in the world just happen to be female. This sextet has both experience and depth of knowledge in their traditions and beyond to make this a glorious success, much of the time sounding like a fiery ceilidh, or an orchestral string section gone wild. The mix of original and traditional material strikes a good balance, and the backup band is nothing less than superb, with plenty of invention (check the piano solo on "Wackidoo," for example). Yes, massed female fiddles really do work well.