Unless you are regular on the Dublin folk scene, it’s highly likely that you may not have come across Varo, a Dublin-based duo comprised of Consuelo Nerea Breschi from Italy and Lucie Azconaga from France. According to their bio, they travelled to Ireland along different musical paths, Lucie from Jazz, Classical music, and French folk, Consuelo from Irish Trad, Folk, and World Music.
Like a lot of the players on the thriving Dublin scene, they have also been involved in other projects including Landless, Ye Vagabonds, the Lisa O’ Neill‘s Band, Alasourse, The Morning Tree, The Nomadic Piano Project.
The duo, who have been working together since 2015, are now ready to release their first album. “…we have been gathering together a repertoire of songs from Ireland, Scotland and England, along with a selection of Irish tunes that we collected from archives, sessions, and from singers and musicians we admire. We have also composed two instrumentals and have chosen songs with a specific focus on a female perspective or conveying stories of rebellion in a social context, or both.”
They state their influences are varied ranging from “Medieval, Baroque and Classical music, as well as the Folk Revival that exploded in England and Ireland in the 70’s.” Watch them in session below at The Workman’s Club, Dublin, supporting Slow Moving Clouds earlier this year. They also collaborate with Frank Tate (mandolin/bouzouki), Niamh Bury (vocals, guitar) and Helen Diamond (vocals, fiddle). The video was filmed and edited by Olga Kuzmenko.
The album is sure to cause quite a lot of excitement on release (one of the reasons I’m now writing about it) and the duo have put a lot of thought into who they have chosen to work with. They opted for two highly regarded sound engineers with different backgrounds: Christopher Barry (Ye Vagabonds, Junior Brother) and John Murphy (Lankum, Landless, Crash Ensemble).
The plan is to produce the album and release it by the end of January 2020 but in order to do so, they need your support. They have set up a crowdfunding campaign via Fundit.ie and there are some great rewards on offer as well.
Find out more and get involved here: https://fundit.ie/project/varo—debut-album
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