Emily Smith - A Day Like Today - $35.00

Hear audio samples from the CD at Foot Stompin' Records.

Visit the Emily Smith site at http://www.emilysmith.org.

If you were around the Hamilton folk music scene in the mid to late 90s, you'd have known about Jamie McClennan, fiddle playing son of Ross and Viv - founding members of the Kon Tiki Folk Club in the 60s which evolved into the current Hamilton Acoustic Music Club.

Jamie impressed with his cheeky grin and flat-out fiddle playing; "this kid should go far.", I thought. Well, blow me down with a bunch of cat-gut - he has! McClennan has returned to his roots and now plays with Scottish 'bright young things', the Emily Smith Band. (Emily Smith, 21, is the winner of this year's BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award.)

The four-piece featuring Smith on spine-tingling vocals, McClennan on fiddle, Ross Ainslie on pipes and Irishman Sean O'Donnell on guitar, debuts with this CD, billed as a mix of traditional and originals, (but for the uninitiated it'll all sound pretty 'old').

Smith keeps true to a traditional singing style, her voice clear and fresh yet telling tales centuries old. She's also an accomplished accordion player, which ads to the tartan flavour, but tracks like McClennan's instrumental 'Party in my Pants' have a definite world music feel, aligning the band with the current resurgence of Scottish music on the international scene.

- Mathias Media

The Maritime Crew - An Audience with The Maritime Crew - $25.00

The Maritime Crew was formed in 1994 with the primary purpose of entertaining visitors to the New Zealand National Maritime Museum on Auckland's Hobson Wharf. The Crew still entertain at the Museum, giving a free concert on the first Sunday of each month. The Crew perform both nationally and internationally at festivals and folk clubs, and regularly perform at events in the greater Auckland region.

www.maritimecrew.co.nz

Phamie Gow - Dancing Hands - $39.95

Phamie Gow is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and is internationally known for the originality of her compositions and the virtuosity of her clarsach playing. Phamie has performed through Britain and Europe, composed for film and theatre and conducted workshops and masterclasses in schools of music and conservatoires in France. Her immediate engagements include festivals in Britain, and performances with her five - piece band in France, Italy, Spain and Australia.

Let's Not And Say We Did - Crannog - $30.00

Amid the hype of the Celtic revival, it's worth remembering that the core is built on the rich fabric of traditional Irish and Scottish music that stretches back centuries. If you're looking for the heart of this music in a contemporary setting you could do no better than Wellington- based band Crannog. This debut album is a good blend of traditional and refreshingly innovative material. Although still in their 20s, Duncan Davidson and Jamie McClennan are no strangers to Celtic music and have a sense for the essence of traditional material. The album has an honest feel of accomplished, uncompromising musicians, playing traditional music of lasting quality - music which will endure long after the current fad in Celtic music has waned.

Mark Sheehan, Wellington Evening Post, August 1999

The Big Birl - Robert Mathieson

Price: $39.99

Waipu - the search for paradise

Price: $35.00 - DVD

This is one of the world's greatest migration stories. In the early 1800s, thousands of Highlanders emigrated to Nova Scotia to escape the hardships of Scotland. Amongst them was a charismatic Presbyterian preacher called Norman McLeod, who became the leader of a Gaelic speaking community centred around St Ann's in Cape Breton.

The community flourished for almost thirty years until a series of crop failures caused widespread famine. Under the leadership of Norman McLeod, they built two ships - The Margaret and the Highland Lassie - and in 1851, they set sail for Adelaide. Disappointed with Australia, they continued the journey that eventually brought them to Waipu.

In the following years another four ships, The Gertrude; The Spray; The Bredalbane and the Ellen Lewis left Cape Breton to join the original settlers. Nearly 900 people left Cape Breton on the six ships and their descendants now number in the tens of thousands.

The families on the six boats were: Anderson, Buchanan, Cameron, Campbell, Dingwall, Elmsley, Ferguson, Finlayson, Fraser, Gillanders, Gillies, Haswell, Kempt, Kerr, MacAuley, MacBeth, MacDonald, MacGregor, MacInnes, MacIsaac, MacKay, MacKenzie, MacLean, MacLennan, MacLeod, MacMillan, MacNab, MacPhee, MacQuarrie, MacRae, Matheson, Morrison, Munro, Nicholson, Ross, Stewart, Sutherland and Urquhart.

Filmed on location in Scotland, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and New Zealand.