With this recording we wanted to gather together tunes that we have been playing since the early days of the band. The material here never made it onto previous albums because we couldn’t find a place for it, didn’t believe we were doing it justice or simply felt that the tunes were too commonly-played and overlooked them in favour of less well-known material.
With recent line-up changes we thought it would be a good time to go back to the beginning and document some of these classic session and dance tunes from our part of the world. The songs that Ellen brought to the band fit into this concept, and include a few ceilidh favourites, some old yet new to us. We’ve included many of the Gaelic names of the tunes here as they form an important connection between the past and the future of our music.
Our approach to the recording of this project was slightly different for us as well as being familiar territory. Instead of going to the studio we decided that these tunes should be played in the setting that we were most familiar with them …live! We played and recorded three intimate acoustic gigs on three different Hebridean Islands over six days. Why? Because we’re into stuff like that!
Tracks:
1. LOCHEIL’S AWAY
quickstep and reels
2. DHANNSAMAID LE AILEAN
port a beul and slip jig
3. O FAIR A-?NALL AM BOTAL
òran/song
4. BOG AN LOCHAN
strathspey and reels
5. PATTERN DAY JIGS
jigs
6. CUIR A-?NALL
set of puir a beul
7.GUR E MO GHILLE DUBH DHONN
òran/song
8. HARRIS DANCE
strathspey and reels
9. ORAN AN TOMBACA
òran/song
10. DUNROBIN
reels
