Cucanandy is a North Carolina-based quartet that features the fancy footwork of step-dancer Malke Rosenfeld, who is a member of the Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble. In Cucanandy, Rosenfeld also plays flutes and tin whistles, as does Mike Casey; Jason Cade plays mostly fiddle and a touch of mandolin, and Stephanie Johnston sings and plays guitar and percussion, with a little step-dancing tossed in. They're a delightful and highly visual live act, as they demonstrated at this year's Celtic Colours festival on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island.
Contented Minds doesn't entirely capture the combo's true strengths, but it's hard to imagine any audio recording doing justice to an act that so prominently features step-dancing. The disc has twelve tracks, including five songs, plus some singing on parts of other tracks. Johnston has a lovely lilting singing voice, which is expecially effective on the Gaelic-language "Tha Mi Sgith Dhan Fhogair Seo." This was actually written in North Carolina in the late 1700s by a displaced Scot, and was a big hit at Celtic Colours. Johnston's mouth music contribution to the sparkling Quebecois set, "L'Esquimaux," is also notable.
Throughout, the CD has a lot of nice interplay between fiddle and flutes. Cade's reel, "The Hunt for Wild Flora," is a good fiddle workout, and the "Hunters Moon" jig set is cool and jazzy, incorporating a string bass into the tune that features mandolin, flute and feet. Casey's flute and whistle playing is very nice on "Yon Green Valley," a pretty Shetland song with some nice double-tracked vocals from Johnston, and a swell contemporary reel at the end.
If I have any criticism of Contented Minds, it is that it's all a bit too pretty and lacking the controlled abandon that is so apparent in their live sets. But Cucanandy is an impressive and personable young band, chock-full of talent and alight with an obvious passion for the music.
