LOSSAN is the debut duo album from Manx Gaelic singer Ruth Keggin and Scottish Harpist Rachel Hair. The album title is a Manx word that can mean light, glimmer, sheen and flame, and the album more than lived up to that name. Our album review concludes, “LOSSAN is one of the most beautiful albums I’ve heard this year, and it’s one I will enjoy revisiting. If anything makes you fall in love with the Manx culture and language, this will.”
Taken from the album, we have the pleasure of sharing their video for Mish as y Keayn (‘Me and the Sea’). As I mentioned in the review, there’s a playfulness to the melody of this song that is so befitting of the rich song narrative; a beautiful poem by Manx poet Annie Kissack…and Ruth’s graceful tones are perfectly matched to that of the harp.
Myself and the sea and the whole empty sky
And a rough cold wind fighting against us,
Waves rising up in a grey-blue wall
And myself alone on the shore.
The video is timely, as Rachel explains: “We’re releasing this video of Mish as y Keayn just ahead of our long-awaited celebratory launch concert of LOSSAN, our duo Manx Gaelic song and Scottish harp album that we released back in June. We were meant to finally perform the album to a live audience, from the very stage that we recorded it on, at the Erin Arts Centre, on the Isle of Man at the end of June, but well, you can guess what happened!
“We’re so grateful that the Erin Arts Centre managed to reschedule us for Monday the 19th of September (Tickets here) and it will be bliss to finally play the album, along with a special guest, Manx fiddler Isla Callister.”
Ruth: “This is one of our favourite sets on the album, and the very first one that we decided was a ‘must-do’! It’s made up of two beautiful Manx songs, which we’ve loved for a number of years. Annie Kissack’s beautiful song, ‘Mish as y keayn’ (Me and the Sea), is the first song in the set – I first learnt that from singing with the Manx Gaelic choir, Caarjyn Cooidjagh (meaning ‘friends together’). Annie is a fine composer and poet who always has a creative idea bubbling away in her head.
“The second song, ‘Arrane ny niee’ (Washing Song), comes from a collection made by Mona Douglas, who was an important Manx cultural figure of the 20th century. Folk who are familiar with Irish music will recognise that the melody is close to the tune ‘Fead an Iolair’ (‘The Eagle’s Whistle’) – and one of my favourite recordings of this is by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Dan Trueman (have a listen). However, the Manx version has lyrics, and very lovely they are too. The lullaby is being sung to a little, curly-headed girl, and she is told, ‘the King of the Stars will shower blessings on you, oh my heart, my treasure’. This set is definitely one of my faves to sing and Rachel has played it as a tune for years. It was great to be joined by the wonderful Isla Callister, on fiddle, and Adam Brown on the bodhran – they gave it such a lovely feel.”
Rachel: “We really wanted to film a video that would show off the beauty of the Isle of Man so we worked with local videographer Brook Wassall who suggested filming in the beautiful Colby Glen, not far from where Ruth is from in the South of the island. I was over for a long weekend, and we only had a few hours to film on the Sunday evening. Thankfully the weather gods played game, as it was deadly still with beautiful light in the glen. However, literally just a few miles away on the coast it was “blowing a hoolie” which made for a total contrast for our second location of filming.”
Purchase LOSSAN:
www.ruthkeggin.com
www.rachelhair.com
Ruth Keggin & Rachel Hair play Erin Arts Centre, Isle of Man, IM9 6LD on Monday, 19th September 2022. Tickets