The Gloaming is a new Irish "supergroup" composed of Sean Nós singer Iarla Ó Lionaird, pianist Thomas Bartlett, hardanger fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, fiddler Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill. A 21mn live track recorded in August 2011 at the National Concert Hall is available to listen to & download on ... [Continue Reading]
Contemporary
Sam Jackson: The Gramophone
Sam Jackson is a Dublin based pianist, but when I heard "The Gramophone" for the first time on the radio, I mistook it for what could have been a track from an early recording from the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Sam Jackson's music is of the same calibre. "The feeling I have something to say, the great difficulty in saying ... [Continue Reading]
Gerry Diver: Music for tape loop
Multi-instrumentalist Gerry Diver based the “Speech Project” on several interviews of Irish musicians and singers such as Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore, Damian Dempsey, Martin Hayes and Danny Meehan. It also features archival recordings of Galway accordion player Joe Cooley. The various musical pitches of the musicians’ voices ... [Continue Reading]
John Cage: In a landscape
Referring to classical Indian thought and influenced by Gita Sarabhai, the Indian musician he was tutoring in the mid-1940s, John Cage formulated the idea that the purpose of music was to “to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences”. Written as a clear homage to Erik Satie, “In a landscape” ... [Continue Reading]
About Spellbinding Music
Why is it that a particular piece of music, a tune or a song will move us in such a way that it will stop us in our tracks, send shivers up our spine or give us goose bumps? Spiritual or secular musical traditions such as Sufi music, Gnawa music, plainchant, gospel, blues etc. all imply elements of introspection, meditation or ... [Continue Reading]
