|
Solas at the One World Theatre
Ye know, one of the really big advantages of being on the board of the Austin Celtic Association happened last night. I was attending the ACA Board Meeting when Celtic Storm radio host, Donnelle McKaskle, came in with some free tickets to see Solas last night. So I grabbed one and went.
I haven't followed the career of Solas as much as I'd like. I spend most of my time checking out Indie Celtic groups, so it was a mighty pleasure to catch the other side of the coin. And wow! The arrangements and instrumentation and of course performance was fantastic!
It wasn't a rip-roaring evening, mind ye. The late show began around 9:30pm, so people were obviously a wee bit tired, but it wasn't due to a tired performance, that's for sure. The band very quietly and humbly, commanded the stage and played two ours of material, largely centered around their new album Another Day that was released last week. What struck me the most was the arrangements.
According to the bio, founder Seamus Egan, was somewhat of a child prodigy. So the fact that he also produced the album and no doubt worked quite a bit at arranging the songs really stands out. It's contemporary traditional Irish music, if ye know what I mean. No?
Well, "pure drop" trad Irish music is where ye have a group of musicians playing the same tune, usually with different instrumentation. Well, that happens here too, but instead, some of the instruments embellish the music that make the stunning trad side sound even more stunning. The bit that really grabbed me was wondering how to attain that "sound".
I mean, I like the NoFi folksy sound that we've been doing for a while, but I would also LOVE to do a future album that has that full-body.
Memories of Middle Earth is the closest we've come, but contemporary Celtic music really covers the entire audial spectrum. The autoharp, recorder and mandolin don't. It's a fairly narrow band. But my ability to come up with ambient sounds just hasn't worked as well when I've tried it. It usually entails a lot of reverb and synth, neither of which I'm super proficient with.
Well, end of the evening, I happily bought one of their $20 CDs to support the group (you can buy it at amazon for much less). Now I'm ready to jump into the trad music world. Though I've started practicing the Penny Whistle, so that makes it easier.
Oh, and the moral of the story, head over to the Austin Celtic Association and become a member. Or if you're not in Austin, join your local organization. (In either case, Coventina's Well benefits the ACA). The Celtic community really needs your support. We had a great festival, but thusfar, we've only broken even. Now we need people to help rocket us forward and to help build the Celtic community.
Posted by Marc Gunn on Thursday, November 06, 2003 |
link to it
latest | archives > >
Well
if you have any questions, I'd be happy
to answer those as well.
|
|
Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers
