It’s not often (this may well be a first) that we get to share the birth of a new project in such a unique way – a video capturing the first notes together – a musical meeting. The results are so beautiful, how could it not be our Song of the Day.
The names of Cormac Byrne & Adam Summerhayes (interviewed here) will be familiar to most following the release of their duo album Stone Soup (which was a Featured Album of the Month)
Under the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification system for almost all folk tales, the ‘Stone Soup’ ones are considered ‘clever man’ stories; these two musicians are most certainly clever men and their own Stone Soup project is the best thing I have heard so far this year. I love the innocence and mystery of improvised music and Stone Soup is one of the finest examples of it I can think of. A beautiful album. Glenn Kimpton, Folk Radio UK
and their Dodo Street 5-piece project whose latest release, Natural Selection, was reviewed by Folk Radio’s Johnny Whalley who declared it “jaw-dropping instrumental brilliance”.
Adam got in touch this week to tell me that he and Cormac were recently on Inisheer for the Craiceann bodhran festival, creating some of their ‘live reactive composition’ stuff on the spot – to a rapturous response…
“As we listened to a session in the very early hours of the morning, a girl sang a simple unaccompanied traditional song, before the session moved on. I was blown away by her voice and suggested to Cor that we might record something with her. A few minutes later, we had a plan to meet up the next evening after we had eaten – and I had learnt her name was Molly.
“Next day after giving a lecture and enjoying a beautiful turquoise swim under a blazing Irish sun, we met Molly later than planned and ambled to the wreck of the Plassey to catch the sunset. We should have ambled faster, as the sun only had minutes to go. We scrabbled around hiding the microphones and field recorder behind a rock and balanced the camera, Molly said ‘shall I do this one?’ and sang a couple of notes – I played an open string to check we were at the same pitch and then we started.”
“So this video captures our first notes together – a musical meeting. After I got home – and through Glastonbury, I finished recording a disc with my favourite accordionist, Murray Grainger (and unexpectedly recorded another album in a burst of late night creativity). Over a celebratory cider, he and I looked at the raw Plassey video – he loved her singing too and we decided to ask Molly and Cormac if they would like to record an album. The instant responses were “I’d love to’ and ‘I’m in”, so that’s what’s about to happen.”
Find them on Facebook here and via cormac-adam.com