A stellar night at Celtic Connections

Sometimes I think, in the end, only the voice truly matters. Dress it however you wish, zhuzh it up with textural condiments: cool electronics, warm strings, harsh noise, romantic rhythm, ambient atmospherics. It’s all decoration. The human voice is what we respond to most fervently and instinctively in popular music.

This – far from infallible – notion occurred to me while attending a concert celebrating 50 years of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as part of Celtic Connections, Glasgow’s annual (and always inventive) festival of roots music. Led by American conductor Eric Jacobsen, the SCO opened with a lively rendition of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture before providing supple, sympathetic support for four voices. Each was unique and evocative. One was truly transportive.

When Buchanan sings, Glasgow is reborn as a widescreen cinematic landscape

Though there was no headline act, the ovation which greeted Paul Buchanan when he sauntered on stage after the interval – looking like an elegantly ageing arts tutor in some underfunded Russell Group uni – gave the game away. Waiting for the audience to settle, Buchanan read my mind: ‘What if it’s not any good?’ he said.

Stage appearances from the former Blue Nile singer and songwriter are rare. In his home city, they come stacked with contextual significance. Across just five albums – four with the Blue Nile, one solo – Buchanan has rendered Glasgow as a city worthy of romantic re-imagining. It sometimes seems that his entire creative raison d’être is to provide an aural response to the question posed in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark: ‘Glasgow is a magnificent city. Why do we hardly ever notice that?’ The answer: ‘Because nobody imagines living here… If a city hasn’t been used by an artist, not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.’