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Celtic, folk, gaelic, gàidhlig, Scottish gaelic.

Er zitten nog twee albums van haar in de map. Gewoon voor de gezelligheid. Een buitengewoon talent.

Caoir is Joy Dunlop’s third solo album. While it continues to be built around traditional Gaelic songs, it marks a significant progression in style, reflecting a long-held and growing ambition to bring the songs to an ever wider audience. Arrangements on her previous albums have usually featured one or two instruments, most commonly piano or fiddle. For Caoir, she has assembled a five-piece band, dispensing with the piano and introducing a full drum kit and bass guitar for the first time.

The building blocks of this bigger sound are apparent as Jigs, the first album track, opens with a simple, deep-toned beat from Ifedade Thomas on drums and muted, strummed guitar from Ron Jappy defining the tempo. A couple of contrasting high notes are added from Mhairi Marwick’s fiddle, and then Joy’s voice joins, along with a simple bass line from Gus Stirrat. Gus also looked after the recording process at Glasgow’s Solas Sound studio, Glasgow being the base for all the players. There they’re kept super busy as session musicians and as members of bands spread across a variety of genres. Joy’s vocal contribution to this track is classic Gaelic mouth music, puirt à beul, a combination of two jigs, Nighean Ruadh Bhàn and Chuirinn Mo Ghiollin a Dh’iomain Nan Caorach. After its relatively simple beginning, the arrangement blossoms, firstly with the fiddle adding a melody line and then background chords from the final band member, Euan Malloch on electric guitar. Also, as the track progresses, the drumming becomes increasingly adventurous, still in the background but a vital contribution. This puirt à beul is relatively sedate, but, later in the album, a second set of four is taken at such a pace that even listening to them, one feels out of breath by the end.

The following song, Ged is grianach an latha (Although the day is sunny), is in marked contrast to the opener. Its slower pace and more complex melody allow Joy’s voice to be far more lyrical and expressive while the arrangement is positively wistful, relying heavily on Mhairi’s fiddle, which at times evokes the shimmering air of a hot day. Yes, they do happen in Scotland. It’s a traditional waulking song and would have been sung during the tweed or tartan-making process when newly woven cloth needed to be rhythmically beaten.

Am Bràighe is the only song not from Scotland; it was written in the early 20th Century in praise of a Cape Breton village, Margaree. Joy began singing it after living and working for six months on Cape Breton and falling in love with the island’s beauty, a beauty that the lyrics work hard to express. For a non-Gaelic speaker, that work would largely be in vain without the notes and translations. Whilst there could be no mistaking that Cadal Cuain, a song from later in the album, tells a sad story, the poetry of this lament for a drowned lover has been preserved in the translation, opening up the impact of the song to an Anglophone listener. If we consider a piece with totally contrasting emotions, the fiddle-led swing of Port Na Cailliche (The Old Crone’s Tune) clearly signals a light-hearted piece, but the details of the husband’s burden are needed if you want to understand the humour. As a further aid, in the booklet, the Gaelic and English lyrics are presented line by line in two columns, making it easy to relate one to the other both as text and sound.

Having opened the album with a pair of jigs, the closing track re-emphasises Joy’s love of traditional dance with a pair of reels, Gun An Gobha A Chàrachadh and Siud An Rud A Thogadh Fonn. That leads us back to the mouth music style of lyrics, with Joy rattling them out while the band puts together an arrangement that gives the track a strong rhythm yet still lets the vocal predominate. The fiddle gets to fill in between verses and, together, voice and instruments providing the album with the resounding finish it deserves.

Joy’s voice is the key ingredient, though I suspect she may argue that it’s really the songs that deserve top billing. But whether she’s delivering the puirt à beul or allowing her voice to explore and interpret the beautiful melodies that are at the heart of the remaining songs, the power and expressiveness of her voice shines through. She has written that she’s always loved music that pushed the boundaries of what was considered “trad” without losing the soul of the songs. There can be no doubt that is exactly what she and a band of exceptional musicians have achieved with Caoir. The album name, incidentally, is pronounced koor and translates as a blaze of fire, fiercely burning, flames or flashes.

De volgende albums zitten in de map:
2016 - Faileasan
2020 - Dithis
2023 - Caoir

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=GFB6iYac3iY