How can we possibly forget the excitement surrounding the release of Ye Vagabonds’ first release for Rough Trade’s River Lea imprint The Hare’s Lament? A Featured Album of the Month on Folk Radio, Thomas Blake declared them to be “True heirs to Sweeney’s Men and Planxty.” We were not alone in our enthusiasm, Hot Press called the record “A joy… Ancient and contemporary all at once”; while The Irish Times praised it as “A labyrinthine treasure trove”. That release also saw them named Best Group at the 2019 BBC Folk Awards and sweep the board at Ireland’s RTE Folk Awards, winning Best Traditional Folk Track, Best Folk Group and Best Folk Album.
The sibling duo of Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn have announced the release of a brand new double A-side single, out this Friday, January 29th on River Lea Records (pre-order here). The two new songs were recorded at Hellfire Studio, Dublin, by Lankum producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy in March 2020. The brothers learned I’m A Rover from their mother when they were young, and believe it travelled from Scotland to her home of Arranmore Island, off the coast of County Donegal, becoming this distinctly unusual version of the song on its oral journey. The Bothy Lads is a song Ye Vagabonds learned and honed at singing sessions, before becoming a highlight of their spellbinding live shows.
To celebrate its release, the brothers have shared a live video of them performing I’m a Rover. Although not the audio from the single, it’s such a beautifully scenic video and the perfect accompaniment. Recorded live in one take by Martin Lustenberger and René Reusser, we find the brothers drifting in a canoe on Lake Brienz, Switzerland (the stillest I’ve seen their feet in a while).
The cover for the single (below) is was taken by fellow Vagabond Alain McFadden, backstage at Dublin’s National Concert Hall before the band’s biggest headline gig to date, in October 2019. The sleeve was designed by Brían and Diarmuid’s brother-in-law Jesse Smith whose fiddle playing was central to the sound of The Hare’s Lament.
Pre-Order the single: https://store-eu.roughtraderecords.com/products/ye-vagabonds-i-m-a-rover-7
In other Ye Vagabonds news, Brían produced a beautiful radio documentary for Lyric fm – The Ballad of the Stolwijk Rescue, and also made a podcast and accompanying blog for the Irish Traditional Music Archive on the songs of Arranmore Island.
You can also support Ye Vagabonds via www.patreon.com/yevagabonds
Main image photo credit: Steve O Connor