...and BANG!!! ...I mean, holy crap - how supercharged can Celtic music be? Jesus Christ... Livewire was probably the first Celtic album I put on after New Year, and it was some launch for 2021, believe me! So okay, you can expect good things from a band consisting of super players (drummer Greg Barry, also … Continue reading Album Review / Mec Lir: Livewire
Category: Reviews
Album Review / Rowan Leslie: Escaping the Dawn
One thing that keeps astonishing me about the Celtic music scene is the way it produces brilliant young musicians who refresh and vitalize the culture. Some do it by expanding and experimenting and stretching the limits of the music, while others own the old traditions and recharge them as if they invented them. Young Irish … Continue reading Album Review / Rowan Leslie: Escaping the Dawn
Album Review / Trail West: Countless Isles and Endless Miles
As I’m writing this, it’s 90 minutes to the opening of Celtic Connections 2021. The festival is 100 % online only and I’m in our living room in southern Finland instead of Glasgow. 2020 really fucked up and changed so many things without warning. One of the bands affected by the dramatic turn of events … Continue reading Album Review / Trail West: Countless Isles and Endless Miles
Album Review / Tanya Brittain: Hireth
Here we are, in 2021, and the world seems stuck in the same chaos it was last year. But at least Celtic music holds the fort and flies the flag of better things! The Changing Room is a Cornish folk act I’ve enjoyed a lot. Tanya Brittain is 50 % of that brill duo and … Continue reading Album Review / Tanya Brittain: Hireth
Album Review / Rachel Newton: To The Awe
If Adenine aka Ailie Robertson's new trance-like solo harp + electronics album reflects the surreal mood of Anno Covid 2020, then so, in a very different way, does Rachel Newton's new outing. With vocals recorded in Rachel's bedroom wardrobe (she mentions this very fact on the album's Bandcamp page) and the musicians playing their parts … Continue reading Album Review / Rachel Newton: To The Awe
Album Review / Adenine
I have seen Ailie Robertson live on stage a few times, playing her harp with various excellent people in different Celtic and Folk lineups and combinations. And I got to talk to her briefly after the Outside Track’s amazing gig at CC2019 - what a lovely person she is! Being familiar with her previous solo … Continue reading Album Review / Adenine
Album Review / Ross Ainslie: Vana
My wife loves Ross Ainslie to death. Big time. Really, really big time. If Vana was any weaker an album, I’d be in trouble because I can’t pretend when I write about music. So I’m totally grateful to Mr. Ainslie for giving the world an hour of music one cannot but love. Relief 😀 In … Continue reading Album Review / Ross Ainslie: Vana
A ”better late than never” review / Hamish Napier: The Woods
I hate the word organic when it’s applied to the marketing of food. It can mean a variety of things and most of them would be misleading to the customer who tries to make a responsible choice. So I use organic here after careful consideration, and I use it with the word lush. This for … Continue reading A ”better late than never” review / Hamish Napier: The Woods
Album Review / Lauren MacColl: Landskein
A long time ago, in a land far, far away... That's how it feels when I remember a day this past winter, just over half a year ago. Me and my wife were in Glasgow for our second Celtic Connections and we had managed to get tickets to Lauren MacColl's solo recital at the City … Continue reading Album Review / Lauren MacColl: Landskein
Album Review: A John Doyle Double Feature
John Doyle, Ireland’s great gift to guitar in folk music, has obviously been a busy guy lately. His latest solo effort, Path Of Stones, came out in the spring and the collaboration album with a certain Mr. McGoldrick was released just a wee moment ago. Since I was not writing here too much during spring, … Continue reading Album Review: A John Doyle Double Feature
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