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3rd Sept. 2007 “...Having grown to a sextet with the addition of Gaelic singer Calum Alex MacMillan, the previously all-instrumental boy-band Dàimh are clearly on a roll, following the release of their third album Crossing Point. MacMillan is widely rated among the best of today’s younger Gaelic exponents, and resonantly showed his mettle in a strong selection of laments, love-songs and livelier numbers. The thrillingly turbocharged synergy of Dàimh’s tune sets, meanwhile, an unplausibly tight, headlong welter of pipes, fiddle, bouzouki, guitar and bodhràn, has rarely sounded better.” ................................................................................................................................................................
19th June 2007
ISLE OF EIGG TENTH ANNIVERSARY CEILIDH
***** AS THE sun rose yesterday on another golden morning in Eigg - though to be fair it barely dips below the horizon at this time of year - the song around the campfire was Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place. None of those lucky enough to be listening as the radiantly entwined voices of Kaela Rowan and Sharon King gave words to the island's beauty was in any doubt about that truth. Most people who've been in Scotland a decade or more will remember the fundraising drive for Eigg, a wee heart-shaped island near Skye, whose inhabitants succeeded in buying their own home soil from its erstwhile absentee landlord ten years ago last week. It became a totemic cause as Scotland geared up for devolution, and the anniversary of the handover has been famed ever since as one of the Highlands' top summer parties. The tenth one was always going to be a hooley and a half. And then some. Now with a population numbering more than 80 - up 25 per cent since the buyout - the proud owners of Eigg welcomed somewhere between 300 and 400 visitors over the weekend, all of us merrily flocking to the one corner of the entire country where the sun was shining. Rarely have so many small boats ferried so many crates of beer. There were also a fair few musicians and instruments among the cargo, including the mighty Shooglenifty, returning veterans of the night the islanders originally took possession, back in 1997. They eventually made it onstage this time, up at the community hall around 1:30am, topping a bill that had also featured an excellent ceilidh band, and a rather magnificent Eigg combo called Massacre Cave, self-styled "shred metal" devotees, and named for the local site where everyone on the island was slaughtered by a rival neighbouring clan two or three centuries ago. Graced by Kaela Rowan's brilliantly impassioned guest vocals, Shooglenifty effortlessly filled the musical spaces opened up by absent mandolin player Luke Plumb, sweeping across the genre spectrum from savagely sharp funk to the outer limits of prog rock, all welded together with killer tunes. The beatmeister baton was eventually lobbed into the highly capable hands of DJ Dolphin Boy, who kept the dancing going until well past breakfast time - by which point the sun was beaming down again, and some other folk were getting their fiddles out for an al fresco tune down at the quayside café. Friday's entertainment choices took in another healthy blast of ceilidh tunes, and the fiery, full-throttle attack of Daimh, awesomely tight yet thrillingly wild. It was thus a thoroughly warmed-up crowd that shook its collective booty to the night's last band, Ruby and the Emeralds, whose sassy mix of blues, Latin and pop was widely rated as one of the weekend's highlights. ................................................................................................................................................................
Sept.05, 2005 “...This set was followed by the high energy performances from Dàimh (Gaelic for ‘kinship’). This popular group, consisting of musicians from Scotland, Cape Breton, California and Ireland, had the Pavilion rocking on its rafters by the end of the evening, both with laughter and music. From beautiful old forgotten Gaelic slow airs, rollicking ‘slow reels’ from Cork, and bubbling fast reel after reel, we were treated to the whole gamut of their repertoire. Dàimh are not just a band – they are an ‘experience’, and one not to be missed wherever they are performing as part of Blas or anywhere else. If the rest of Blas is as enjoyable as this concert, then the organisers and funders should have nothing to fear for its future – the feeling of a ‘Pan’ festival, on the model of Celtic Colours in Cape Breton, was beginning to be very much part of the atmosphere and many of the audience were discussing the next concerts they were going to. One excited audience member was heard to say “That’s the best £11 I have ever spent”. Testimony indeed. Gu math thèid leibh uile, Blas!” © Fiona MacKenzie, 2005 ................................................................................................................................................................
16th May, 2005 IF YOU hold any truck with meteorological symbolism, then the first Sound of Rum music festival certainly got the blessing of the elements at the weekend. True, the sun was playing hide and seek on Sunday with spells of classic Hebridean smirr, but the previous day it shone steadily from dawn to dusk, beaming down on several hundred happy campers. Looking over the sea to Skye, it really was a fairytale spot for a festival. Built in 1897 by Sir George Bullough, the playboy heir to a Lancastrian industrial fortune, the castle - aptly enough - is a monument to unashamed pleasure, complete with every mod con that Victorian enterprise bequeathed the Edwardian rich. Judging by the rumours of orgies, said to have been hosted by Bullough in the private ballroom, this wasn’t the first time the place had witnessed some serious partying. For an island community of 30 (six of them children) to entertain a sell-out audience of 400 - plus artists and crew - over three days is no small undertaking, but royally entertained is what you were. From the cosy size of the main marquee, the small but perfect catering operation, and the smiling local volunteers manning the bargain-priced bar, to such left-field delights as an axe-throwing workshop (honest), this was a welcome born of careful preparation. "One of the main ideas behind the festival is to get past Rum’s reputation as the forbidden island," explained the events co-director, Fliss Hough, referring to the visitor restrictions formerly imposed under the Scottish Natural Heritage’s ownership of the island. "Since the new access legislation, we really are open to visitors now, and the festival is one way to get that message across." With funding from a range of local enterprise and community development bodies, the festival scored first and foremost with a top-notch line-up of bands, headed by the high-octane triple whammy of Shooglenifty, Session A9 and The Peatbog Faeries. Hough also credits the new HI-ARTS online ticketing system, www.thebooth.co.uk, ith a key role in the event’s success, not least in pulling a strikingly young crowd, from both elsewhere in the Highlands and the Central Belt. Each of the three headline acts has their roots and heart in the western Highlands and Islands - as does, let’s face it, much of Scottish traditional music - and all three performed with joyous, riotous abandon amid the heady buzz of their home crowd having an early summer spree. Even so, the show was nearly stolen from under them by Lochaber-based five-piece Daimh, whose all acoustic, fiddle ‘n’ pipes-led charge reached truly dizzying peaks of fire and fervour. Other highlights lurking beneath other unfamiliar names included a pulsing, swaggering set from the Treacherous Band, featuring several members of Croft No Five, and a wicked dance frenzy whipped up by the Squashy Bag Ceilidh Band led by fiddlers Eilidh Shaw and Sarah McFadyen. ................................................................................................................................................................
17th Feb. 2004 “...When it comes to turbo-charged Scottish tunes, there are few acts to touch Dàimh at full throttle. The Lochaber-based five-piece blazed through an hour’s worth of mainly high-speed material. And while the finale featuring both bands might have followed common folkie practice, the fact that they had clearly rehearsed their four joint numbers, rather than winging it, lent added value to a top-quality show. The tour continues until 1 March.” ................................................................................................................................................................
MALINKY AND DAIMH “...There's pace, too, and no little character in Daimh's selections of reels, slides and mazurkas, with a slow air from Cape Breton offering a pause for reflection. Gabe McVarish's fiddling, Angus MacKenzie's piping and whistle playing and Colm O'Rua's banjo playing form a tight, melodic arrowhead, with Ross Martin's assured guitar playing and the controlled rumble of James Bremner's bodhran providing a powerful rhythmical impetus. As a tentet, they both continued and merged each group's policies, with much inter-band banter, and droll cheek from stirrer-in-chief Ross Martin. The first wrestling match turns out to be more of a relay, with Daimh taking the first lap and an amalgamation of fiddles, pipes, whistles and rhythm sections sprinting in unison for the tape. And the songs, particularly ‘The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie-o’ (although it's still something of a work in progress), found Polwart forging ahead, but with a strong feeling for the tradition.” ................................................................................................................................................................ Daimh Review Dàimh: Cape Breton vitality, Irish verve, West Highland vigour and the vibrancy of the Irish-American scene combine to give Daimh matchless va va voom. Drawing on their respective traditions and playing fiddle, guitar, bagpipes, banjo and bodhran, Daimh (pronounced Da-eve) create tight, fast flowing, high energy music with intervals of reflection evoking the beauty of their base in the Scottish Highlands. Their albums, Moidart to Mabou and Pirates of Puirt, have earned enthusiastic reviews and the fervour and cask strength spirit of their live gigs stir up passionate responses from fans old and new. ................................................................................................................................................................
Reid Hall, 27 August 2004
Music An eclectic mix from the band members' cultural background, their own music and Scottish traditional dances Musicians Daimh: Colm O'Rua (banjo, whistle and mandola); Angus MacKenzie (large and small pipes); Gabe McVarish (fiddle); Ross Martin (guitar); James Bremner (bòdhran) Venue: Reid Hall What makes a band based in Lochaber, made up of two authentic West Highlanders, one Californian, one Cape Breton Islander and only one Irishman stress its connections to Irish music? Could it be that they'd played in Belfast the night before and succumbed to the charms of the Guinness? Or could it just be that Colm's patter and banter just emphasised that? Whatever... the band were revved up at full speed and going full blast for the whole, breakneck 75 minutes. And their audience were in fine form too. Cabbages were the topic of the night - introduced out of the fact that they'd all just had a curry before going on stage. They didn't always remember the names of the sets of tunes they played but that didn't matter. Occasionally some details surfaced, especially about those cabbages. After playing a set of strathspeys and reels, including a tune Colm had written for Fr Seumas McNeill of Benbecula, there were roars of laughter when he said that the following tune (which had a tongue-twisting Gaelic name) had been That's how cabbages go bad. Later, when Ross had been telling how Colm's mazurka - yes, mazurka - had been written during a trip to Galicia in Spain, he remarked on the strange fact that "our national dish of fish, cabbages and potatoes, a peasant dish" was a high-priced delicacy on the menu of a a "wee restaurant up a side street in Compostela". And so, Down and out in Sant'Iago was born. It hardly seems believable that this immensely talented band, who play together as if they'd been playing for decades, were only formed in 2000. The stars seem to be Gabe on fiddle and Ross on the pipes, big and small. They're certainly the basis of the band's unique sound. Various sets demonstrated aspects of how their sound is mixed, in groups of fiddle, small pipes, guitar and bòdhran or fiddle, guitar and mandola (which they joked that they'd found in a cupboard next door on their last visit). By the way that joke, heard more than once, fell flat for few folk in the audience were aware that the fascinating Collection of Historical Musical Instruments actually lives next door! But the real driving force is the steady, exciting and varied underpinning of James Bremner's bòdhran. And when the banjo and the guitar join it to act as the backing rhythm, Gabe and Ross can really take off and fly. Talking about flying: we were treated to the fastest, most driving encore I've heard in years, with everyone in exact time with the others, with the tempo ratcheting up tighter and tighter, the pace reaching dizzying speed and the tunes jumping from player to player until we thought they'd all explode out of the Reid Hall. Seven most amazing minutes. I knew they were anxious to get to Sandy Bell's but they very nearly got there - rocket propelled! And they deserved whatever they were going to sup. © Pat Napier, 27 August 2004. Published on www.edinburghguide.co.uk ................................................................................................................................................................
29th May 2003
MUSIC: Dàimh *** THE Gaelic name of this Highland-based, all instrumental five-piece translates as "affinity", a reference in part to their members’ Celtic kinship across birth places that range from Arisaig to California, Dublin to Cape Breton. It could equally well allude to the locked-in synergy of their ensemble interaction, especially when hitting the homeward straight in the fiery dance-tune sets for which they are justly renowned. The rampaging wildness of their playing is underpinned by formidable collective control, lending their sound a propulsive, taut-sprung sharpness and lift that also enables them, just when you think they’ve reached full flight, to kick up yet another gear. There’s craft and discipline aplenty, too, in Dàimh’s arrangements of tunes, both fast and slow, here mostly lifted from their recent second album, The Pirates of Puirt. Armed with fiddle, bagpipes, whistles, banjo, mandola, guitar and bodhran, they cover a splendidly-broad spectrum of timbres and textures, rhythmic and harmonic possibilities. Shifting pairs and trios within the line-up banded the melodies about with consummate ease and fluency, all five adding and subtracting layers of colour or counter rhythm for maximum dynamic impact. Further contrast came with a handful of slower numbers, notably, a gentle, lyrical rendition of the Quebeçois tune Mornings at Bonny Doon, and a delicate Highland waltz sparingly adorned with soft, jazz-hued guitar chords. It’s their jigs and reels, though - plus the odd set of Irish slides - that really set the pulse racing, Buoyant, muscular fiddle, blade-bright pipes, thrumming headlong grooves and a generous, joyous scattering of ornamental twists and flourishes add up to one of the most intoxicating brews around. ................................................................................................................................................................
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