★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

Oh my stars, (as a wee girl used to say in a misremembered Victorian (?) children's drama from the early 80s where the actor who played the amiable chef from Fawlty Towers was a mean dad, but I digress...)

So last week we had the live premiere of "Hamilton Mausoleum Suite" in the mausoleum itself.

The Mausoleum's cupola

Well, the reviews are in and...*drum roll*...it's 5 stars all the way!!  *gong, duck whistle*

"Something a bit special"★★★★★ The Scotsman (read more)
"A huge palate of sound and feeling" ★★★★★ The Skinny (read more)
"Bloody freezing" ★★★★★ The Sunday Mail

I'm extremely chuffed of course, but it was really the amazing musicians who earned all those stars: Justine Watts (violin), Stewart Webster (violin), Emma Connell-Smith (viola), John Davidson (cello) and Sharron Griffiths (harp).

If you listen here from 1 hour 5 mins, I was on the BBC Radio Scotland's "Out Of Doors"  programme discussing recording in the Mausoleum along with very knowledgeable guide Peter.

I'll be introducing one more live performance of the Hamilton Mausoleum Suite at The Tower Digital Arts Centre, Helensburgh on 13th March. Tickets here.

You can still order the "Hamilton Mausoleum Suite" album on CD/LP here.

The nice folks at the highly recommended Glasgow Music City Walking Tours asked me to blog about the project - so I did.

What else? Young Offenders Episode 3 made me laugh and cry at the same time.

This is an amazing, suitably epic New Yorker article about Henry Worsley's Antarctic Expeditions.

Tracyanne & Danny is a new project featuring Tracyanne Campbell from Camera Obscura and Danny Coughlan from Crybaby. Produced by Edwyn Collins & Sean Read (Dexys), I can vouch that it is a wee beauty.

UK dates, US dates, album release date and a new song can all be found at:

www.tracyanneanddanny.com

Toodle pip!