Celtic Connections features some 2,100 musicians and more than 300 events in 18 days. Dave McNally talks to Donald Shaw about the latest 25th festival, drawing on the challenges and rewards of being the Artistic Director and more.
The Wishing Tree is, believe it or not, the first studio recording by the redoubtable trio of John Doyle, John McCusker and Mike McGoldrick. An exceptional album that has to be a front-runner for album of the year.
Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine took Declan O’Rourke 15 years to put together but the result was more than worth the wait. With a 9-piece band including Dermot Byrne, Gino Lupari and Mike McGoldrick the album tells stories of the famine in both a moving and evocative way.
On his first entirely self-composed Irish folk album ‘Sharing a Song’, Eddie Sheehan enlists the help of, amongst others, Dirk Powell and Mike McGoldrick. The songs are personal and unpretentious but also to reflect the fallibility that goes with being human.
On Tales From The North Calum Stewart joins the ranks of thoroughly modern Uilleann pipers, who are steeped in their own tradition but cross borders to bring in other influences. He can also write a damned fine tune.
On their new album ‘Interesting Times’, Basco invite you to ‘listen, ponder and sip your drink, and we’ll see you all out there tomorrow ready to sniff the air, feel the grass, and see which road seems better’. You should accept the invitation.
Aizle are one of the latest among the new crop of exciting young folk/traditional bands from Manchester’s thriving Celtic music scene. They definitely offer something different as their classical and jazz backgrounds meld with a hugely enjoyable bunch of Irish and Scottish traditional tunes.
As before, on Ports of Call, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Hass make the fiddle and cello sound like they were made for each other. The absence of guests and the overall more relaxed pace on the album allows them to stretch the boundaries perhaps even more than previously.
Usher’s Island self-titled debut doesn’t disappoint, a first-rate album of Irish traditional music and one that is more than fit to take its place in the ranks of classic group albums in the field.
Freedom Highway demonstrates a coherent maturity that marries Rhiannon Gidden’s beautiful and powerful vocal interpretation with an equally compelling set of varied and, all too relevant, songs.
