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Bagpipes , small pipes, folk. Een uitermate mooi album en in deze resolutie niet te versmaden.

Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of experimental Celtic music. Her piping has earned her a BBC Young Folk Award and a BBC Horizon Award. Her second album "Carry Them With Us” is an exhilarating weave of rich textural drones, trance atmospheres and instrumental folk traditions. Acclaimed Canadian sound explorer and saxophonist Colin Stetson is a featured collaborator on the record.

Stories make humanity. They shape us, explain us, give us a solid place in the world. They show us who we are, our myths, our hopes, our past. Everything has its story. Stories can be told in music as well as words, and on her second album, Carry Them with Us, Brìghde Chaimbeul reveals hers. From her heart, from the Scottish tradition that formed her. And every one of them weaves its spell, as a good story should.

Carry Them with Us is undoubtedly Chaimbeul’s vision, but collaborator Colin Stetson, an experimental saxophonist and film composer probably best known for his work with Arcade Fire, helped her realise it.

“The sound he creates is the sound in my head, it was what I was going for.” Their musical partnership began on Twitter, not long after she released her acclaimed first album (The Reeling). “He tweeted something and I started listening to his music. He uses atmospheres that inspired me. During lockdown he contacted me to record something for a documentary and I asked him if he’d listen to a track of mine. That was in 2021, and he came over for a week in July last year. We were basically writing and recording at the same time, playing together. Considering he came in cold, what he achieved was amazing. I got so much from working with Colin.”

“There are times it sounds as if something’s going on,” Chaimbeul agrees, “but it was all organic. Only a few of the tracks have overdubs, because of sound bleeding from microphones, and for layering textures, such as with the harmonium. I like to keep it live, for that flavour. The only studio tinkering was some basic mixing.”

Both musicians are innovators -“there are times he sings into the sax to give a different tone and texture,” Chaimbeul says, while she has developed a way to coax alternative tunings from her smallpipes. With the constancy of the drone as their foundation, and small changes to the melodies as they progressed, the music becomes immersive as Chaimbeul and Stetson weave over and around each other.

Together, they created an album of stories. Some, like “Crònan (i)” came spontaneously as the pair played in the studio. Others, “Pilliù: The Call of the Redshank” and “Pìobaireachd Nan Eun: The Birds,” grew from traditional pieces.

“They’re inspired by birds. They come up often in Gaelic folklore, and in old songs connected to piping,” Chaimbeul explains. “You often find vocables that are meant to imitate bird song, which I love, like the swan on “Pìobaireachd Nan Eun.” It’s as if there’s a connection between Gaelic and the language of birds.”

Stories even inhabit the album’s title. The phrase Carry Them with Us comes from Scotland’s Iain Sheonaidh Smus, a man who was able to recite all the old tales from memory.

Tradition shaped Brìghde Chaimbeul, and she wears that history proudly. But on Carry Them with Us, she shows her music has grown beyond labels. It might draw on folk music and minimalism, but led by the drone, she’s taken the leap to tell new stories. 

Tracks:
1. Pililiù (The Call of the Redshank)
2. Tha Fonn Gun Bhi Trom (I Am Disposed of Mirth)
3. Banish The Giant of Doubt & Despair
4. Crònan (i)
5. Uguviu (ii)
6. Piobaireachd nan Eun (The Birds)
7. Òran an Eich-Uisge (Song of the Waterhorse)
8. S Mi Gabhail an Rathaid (I Take the Road)
09. Bonn Beinn Eadarra (The Haunting)

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=QLZMLj-XYW0