When I saw "Rachel & Ron" on the schedule for the first Slainte music festival at SteelStacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I didn't know what to expect. A Scottish harp and guitar duo would not have been my first guess.

But I hung around to listen to them (after my band, Fire in the Glen, had cleared off the stage, and I'm glad I did. "Rachel" turned out to be Rachel Hair, a talented clarsach (the traditional Scottish harp) player I had heard (recorded, not in person) before; "Ron" is Scottish guitarist Ron Jappy. Together, they are a formidable duo.

Hair has been performing on the harp for nearly 20 years, and she has an undisputed master of the instrument. She has a delicate touch but an aggressive style of playing that ensures the instrument is never relegated to the background. You might want to play this disc softly and enjoy a more ambient experience, but the music will poke at the edge of awareness until you pay closer attention.

Her playing on Sparks is expressive and emotional, with an underlying joy that tells listeners that Hair truly loves what she does.

The guitar complements the harp perfectly, together making an understated but satisfyingly full sound. I hadn't, to my knowledge, heard Jappy before seeing the duo in Bethlehem, but he's a talented performer who provides a solid foundation but never lets his guitar get buried beneath the harp.

According to Hair's website, she and Jappy are both from "fishing villages rich in musical tradition," and they both honed their craft in Glasgow, where they met. They have been performing together now for nearly five years.

The instrumental selections on Sparks are all well-constructed arrangements of new and traditional (mostly Scottish and Irish) tunes. Hair penned several of them herself; the most amusingly titled, once you know the backstory, is "The Namesake," which is dedicated to Jennifer Aniston because a Google search for "Rachel Hair" is apparently more likely to retrieve images of Aniston's signature style on Friends than of this Scottish harpist. Ha!

Sparks is the duo's first album together, but I hope it won't be their last.

[ visit Rachel Hair's website ]