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Folk.

We’re used to hearing Brendan Graham songs in isolation (‘You Raise Me Up’ by Josh Groban et al, ‘Rock’n’Roll Kids’ by Harrington-McGettigan) but they take on a far greater potency when heard as a collection – all the more so in the company of singer Cathy Jordan and pianist Feargal Murray and handpicked musicians from Ireland, Norway and Scotland.

The opening track, Graham’s ‘Isle Of Hope, Isle Of Tears’, conveys the pathos of what Irish migrants – let’s drop the ‘e’ to say exactly what these Irish people were and are – to the USA felt. It should be force-fed to the mindless racists objecting to our current immigrants. Jordan doesn’t just sing the melody, she inhabits the whole song and sings its meaning from the inside.

Not every singer does that. So when she takes on ‘Crucán na bPáiste’, her unforced emotional performance captures the bleakness of the graveyard for unbaptised children close to Graham’s home that inspired it. A spoken intro sets the scene for ‘Winter, Fire And Snow’, with Feargal Murray’s piano magically conjuring the sense of snow gently falling.

The album is blessed with an absence of clutter, so every instrument earns its keep, never better than the evocative fiddle in the intro to ‘A Winter Blessing’, which comes like a migrant with its Norwegian ancestry and fits in very snuggly indeed. Norway plays a key part too in ‘Hardanger Bow’, a song inspired by Annbjørg Lien that finds her playing the eponymous Hardanger Fiddle to lovely effect.

The playing throughout is impeccable, as we’ve come to expect from musicians of the calibre of Bill Shanley, Phil Cunningham and Annbjørg Lien, all of whom have that rare gift of knowing how much to give and when to hold off. Ending with ’Sleeping’, the lullaby to Brendan’s daughter Alana, it all adds up to a moving musical experience, and a worthy celebration of one man’s gifts. With one reservation: why only 10 tracks?

Tracks:
01 - Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears
02 - Waltzing Alone
03 - Crucán na bPáiste
04 - The Fairhaired Boy
05 - Hardanger Bow
06 - Till Morning Will Come
07 - Winter, Fire and Snow
08 - Knocknashee
09 - A Winter Blessing
10 - Sleepsong

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25HfP8ovmZU