A few random comments on Celtic Music...

[acroyear]

I've not had the time to decide a real playlist for today, so I just threw the celtic list on random...

• Altan - John Doherty's Reels - Runaway Sunday
  
  Pretty standard 3 reel set from the post-Frankie line-up.  Dermot Byrne is a very fine box-player and the middle tune is quite a highlight.
  
  
• Solas - The Big Reel of Ballynacally, etc - Suny Spells and Scattered Showers
  
  A reel set from the second album.  This set highlights Seamus Egan's banjo playing, where he has the lead on each tune, sharing it with one or two other lead instruments (at one point overdubbing a flute).  Pretty standard (meaning fantastic!) guitar work from Patrick Doyle, who always has this nack for being very percussive in his style yet still getting the chords across crystal clear.
  
  
• The Rankin Family - Grey Dusk of Eve - Endless Seasons
  
  An odd song, even for these Cape Bretoners.  Complex percussion rhythm and a keyboard wash are the main accompanyment to this song featuring Gaelic background vocals from the 3 sisters under a poetic lyric by Liam O'Maonlai of Hothouse Flowers (who also adds a fantastic Irish pipe melody).
  
  
• Skyedance - The Iron Rig / The Boxwood Reel - Labyrinth
  
  Scottish Fiddler (and California resident) Alasdair Fraser, after working with a fine group of musicians for a solo album (Dawn Dance) including Braveheart piper Eric Rigler and longtime friend (and Baltimore resident) Chris Norman on flute, decided to actually form a group putting 7 of these musicians and himself on the road.  The group has done 3 albums so far, including a live one recorded in Spain with Galician musicians.
  
  
• Deaf Shepherd - Jean Carignan - Synergy
  
  A fine Scottish group, featuring piper Rory Campbell, who's also in Old Blind Dogs.  Very nice accoustic sound for their tune-sets like this one, but their songs were a little too mellow for my tastes.  I thought they were defunct (Rory implied so when I talked with him back in 2001), but they appearantly reunited in 2004 for a new album that I need to pick up someday.
  
  
• The Iron Horse - Stray Peas - Voice of the Land
  
  The Iron Horse have been through a number of line-ups over the years, but generally have kept the same basic sound.  This odd track from a TV soundtrack features a cittern hornpipe solo over a drum-machine mix, with fiddle and faint distorted electric guitar joining in on occasion.  Not a great track...maybe it worked better in context.  They've done better.
  
  
• Andy M. Stewart & Manus Lunny - Monday Morning - At It Again
  

  Monday morning, why do you haunt me
  With your bells and factory whistles all around?
  Monday morning, why do you taunt me?
  And I so tired I could sleep here on the ground.

  Celtic blues?  nah...
  
  BTW, Andy is from Silly Wizard and is the author of a number of songs that some still mistakenly call "Trad. Arr."'s work.  Though Irish, Manus plays guitar and bazouki with Scottish celt-rockers Capercaillie.
  
  
• Donal Lunny - La Irish Costa De Galicia (The Irish Coast of Galicia) - Journey
  
  From a best-of compilation of this fine composer's work.  Donal has been involved in many of the greats, including Bothy Band, Planxty, and Moving Hearts, putting him in the same league with Davey Spillane, Andy Irvine, and Riverdance composer Bill Whelan.  This track includes him playing tunes inspired by the traditional music and pipes of Galicia, a region of north-west Spain that saw quite a bit of back-and-forth Irish-celtic migrations over the last thousand years.
  
  
• Deanta - The Benedy Glen - Ready for the Storm
  
  Irish group from County Antrim.  This slow song is a little more modern than their tune-sets tend to be, with a keyboard wash and ethereal essense.
  
  
• Capercaillie - An Fhideag Airgid - Glenfinnan (Songs of the '45)
  
  Originally released on Karen Matheson's first solo album, feature just her on Gaelic vocals and husband Donald Shaw on piano.  Sad, gentle ballad, probably describing a rather sad but typical story of lost love in the midst of the failed rebellion.

Pretty impressive cross-section, I think...

Comments

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

Deaf Shepherd

bwahahahahahahaha...