the olllam return with their long-awaited second album, elllegy, out now and available via Bandcamp. They are celebrating the album’s release with a number of Irish dates, including Dublin National Concert Hall (dates below).
Yes, it has been ten years since the legendary Belfast piper John McSherry (Lunasa, At First Light, Ulaid) surprised us all with the announcement of ‘the olllam‘, a band that set out to explore the underbelly of Irish music. Alongside John, the olllam features fellow piper/whistler and grammy-nominated producer Tyler Duncan (Carly Rae Jepsen, Vulfpeck, Jeremy Kittel), Michael Shimmin (May Erlewine, Joshua Davis, Millish), and Joe Dart (Vulfpeck).
As mentioned in the review of their self-titled 2014 debut, the olllam are an Irish-American band and a super-group in their own way. The name derives from the bards of the old Irish kings, but the word ollam can simply and appropriately mean master or highest ranked. The extra L in their spelling, which also features in the song titles and album title ‘elllegy’, represents the core trio of John McSherry and the Detroit natives Tyler Duncan and Michael Shimmin, three master musicians.
As John revealed in our interview back then, while traditional roots are present throughout their music, the construction of their debut was approached in a more contemporary manner: “Before any of the melodies were composed, myself and Tyler discussed what we wanted to say with the album, how we wanted to approach the melody writing and what kind of sound we were after. Typically, in Irish music, tunes are put into ‘sets’ of two, three or more, each tune having a different mood or rhythm from the previous. We wanted to steer away from this approach and treat each track on the album as a piece on its own, like a song with verses, chorus’s, middle eights, outros and intros etc. We wanted the mood of each piece to rise and fall naturally”.
Their music is described as placing the listener somewhere between Radiohead and Planxty with the ambient emotionalism of Nick Drake or Explosions in the Sky.
Their new offering ‘elllegy’ is out now and available to buy via Bandcamp on Digital/CD/Vinyl here.
Listen to the album below:
the olllam Live Dates
June 11 (Sat) Doolin Folk Festival [TICKETS]
June 16 (Thurs) Cyprus Avenue, Cork [TICKETS]
June 17 (Fri) Galway Town Theatre [TICKETS]
June 18 (Sat) Dublin National Concert Hall [TICKETS]
June 19 (Sun) Limelight, Belfast [TICKETS]
Website: https://www.theolllam.com/