I’ve been listening an awful lot to the recent Chris Norman / David Greenberg CD “Let Me In This Ae Night”, my new favorite thing. Can anyone recommend recordings in a similar style? Of course nobody else plays like these guys, but any related terrain would be interesting. I like how dry and present the recording is, not drenched in reverb. And I like how it isn’t the least bit sentimental or sappy, just two musicians making completely interactive and thoughtful music together. I also like that there’s no guitar, the same way I like some jazz recordings with no drums. Often times the cymbals just serve to wash the sound out in the upper frequencies, and you hear less of everything (of course a great drummer can be sublime). Sometimes a guitar player who plays rhythm backup is just filling up space, and I’d love to hear more recordings of great stripped down flute/violin/concertina etc music with a focus on the space and the sound.
These aren’t necessarily my preferences in general, but I just love this one record and I’d like to find more that explore this sound and spirit. Any recommendations?
I’ve not really heard much Chris Norman, but based on your description of the album I’d recommend John Creaven’s “The Story So Far.” Also, if you’re really into “pure drop” type music, check out Mick O’ Brien and Ciobhan O’Ralleigh’s (spelling?) album “Kitty Lie Over.” It’s pretty much all uilleann pipes and fiddle, with a couple of whistle tracks, but it’s simply amazing. And I’d recommend Paddy Carty and Conor Tully’s album “Traditional Music of Ireland.” It’s accompanied, but it’s still real “pure drop” type stuff.
I don’t know much of Chris Norman’s output, the album you mention not at all, so I can’t say how “comparable” those suggestion may be, but I think from other things you wrote these may fit the bill, and they’re more than worth investigating even if they don’t. Check out (if you can get’em) Jean-Michel Veillon’s two duo albums with Yvon Riou. Riou is a guitarist, but does not IMO for the most part merely accompany/play rhythm. (He does do those things, but oh, so much more.) Their interaction is sublime. The albums in question are Pont Gwenn Ha Pont Stang and Beo! (Live in Belfast).
I wouldn’t really call ‘Let Me in this Ae Night’ pure drop; a good album but certainly not strictly trad material. I do agree with your recommendations though apart from the John Creaven album because I am not familiar with it. Mick and Caoimhin’s stuff is always good ‘Kitty Lie Over’ is pretty much a classic (even though it only came out in '03) and the new one, ‘Deadly Buzz,’ is quite good Mick even plays flute on one track. I’d also say that Caoimin’s album with Brendan Begley and the one that Peadar O Riada did with him and Martin Hayes might be of interest to you apossibleworld. Plus if you aren’t familiar with Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill’s stuff you should check it out.
Harry Bradley’s stuff is usually sparsely accompanied as well so that might be worth a listen if you haven’t listened to his stuff. Conal O Grada’s ‘Cnoc Bui’ is another good one, most of it is just him playing solo but there are a few tracks with Colm Murphy (bodhran) as well; plus Conal, Benny McCarthy (box), and Dave Sheridan’s (fiddle) group The Raw Bar Collective is another good one. You should also get the classic Tommy Potts album ‘The Liffey Banks’ just solo fiddle and played in a completely unique way. I know not all of these I have mentioned have flute players on them but one shouldn’t limit one’s self to just flute-centric music.
Great I will check all of this out! I didn’t mean to imply only flute, or no guitar. I would actually call that Norman/Greenberg album pretty untraditional, but the traditional roots are at the heart of it in a very strong way. Ok good, a lot of investigating to do. And keep em coming, if you think of more
FYI, I had put the wrong Conal O Grada album up there by mistake and have since corrected it. ‘Top of the Coom’ is a great album but it has guitar, bouzouki, piano, and bodhran on the album; ‘Cnoc Bui’ is the one with just him and Colm on a few tracks. I’ll have a look through my collection and see if there is anything I may have forgotten.
Why not? I need at least a wind instrument (flute preferably, but pipes, whistle are OK) to get me really interested. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, as far as I can tell.
My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. Seriously though just listening to flute players would give a very one-sided view to the tradition; there is nothing wrong with only listening to trad on wind instruments but you are doing yourself a dis-service by limiting your view of the music as it is. Players of other instruments will play in styles different to what we flute players will think of as well as play variations and phrases which would not always come to mind for a flute player. Listening to and learning from other instruments will expand your insight into different ways to play this music and thus make you a more competent (not to say you that you aren’t) player. Plus there are an innumerable amount of people proficient on other instruments; do you mean to say that their music is of no consequence because they are not flute players? The tradition existed for about two centuries[*] before our type of flute came into it; was this music irrelevant? Flutes were not the original instrument in the tradition; so possibly there is something to learn from the instruments that were around before ours came into it. My two cents on the matter and if anbything I have said offends you that was not my intent in posting this.
[*] If I am remembering correctly Uilleann pipes were developed in the 1600s. Fiddles and whistles were also being played before this. There is no evidence to suggest that transverse flutes were being used in Ireland for traditional music until the introduction of the Boehm system and the subsequent selling of simple system flutes in favor of the Boehm system. If you don’t like this fact see Fintan Vallely’s Companion to Irish Traditional Music p. 137 I have the older edition not the new one so this entry is probably on a different page in the new one.
Back on topic, I heartily recommend C&Fer Markus Tullberg’s flute duo CD with Andreas Ralsgård, Traditional Flute Music from Sweden (http://www.myspace.com/ralsgardtullberg) - just two flutes… not ITM, of course, but really excellent (and Markus would not, I think, deny that there is some ITM influence in his playing style!).
And then there’s Ceri Rhys Matthews’ Yscolan album - you can listen to it for free here (whole album stream), and either buy a download or order the CD. Ceri is a very visceral musician - not a virtuosic technical player, but a virtuoso interpreter of material. (He plays a 4-key Dave Williams flute, BTW.)
There is another album that came into my mind, no flutes or fiddles though… Angelina Carberry: An Traidisiun Beo. Beautiful beautiful album, and I’m usually not a huge fan of banjo and accordion, but here the music get a really great feel.
A brave album. You could go a lot of different routes to pick up elements of this you like, but in the spirit of ecclectic duets with a varied choice of tunes and honest playing:
+concertina
Tim Collins & Brian McNamara - Reed Only
+Scottish
Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas - Fire & Grace
