Celtic music
Live! by Kelpieemusic link
I downloaded this CD by the group Kelpie on emusic over a year ago, but really never gave it a good listen until recently. Boy, I didn't know what I was missing. It is really extraordinarily good from the first track to the last.
A Kelpie is a spirit in Scottish mythology who appears at the waterside disguised as a beautiful white horse. Once mounted, the unsuspecting rider is taken to the bottom of the loch never to be seen again. In Norway it is the water troll, Nøkken, who lives in a lake, occasionally surfacing to lure people to their doom. Thus, "Kelpie" is the perfect name for a group formed by the Danish singer and musician, Kerstin Blodig (who, by the way, has one of the best female voices I've heard), and Scots finger-style guitarist, Ian Melrose, combining folklore of their two cultures. Together, they create really nice original and traditional Celtic influenced Scandinavian music.
Although this is a live recording (I almost always prefer studio recordigns), the sound is fantastic.
Folkworld says this album "is of such high (sound) quality and contains such well played, beautifully sung songs and music that its recommended for everybody who loves Celtic influenced Scandinavian acoustic music."
Now I am going to have to get Kelpie's newest, which also sounds very good:
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Comments
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First solo album by the lead singer of The Oysterband. Been meaning to download this 2009 release for quite a while but only caught it as one of my last emusic downloads. Definitely one of my current favorites right now.
The Bellowhead-sounding "Fire Marengo" and "Searching for Lambs," a duet with Eddi Reader, and "One Morning in the Spring" are probably my favorite tracks. I love all of it.
I know there's a Hello thread for new members, but I thought this was a more suitable place for me to start out, having been involved in the eMu Celtic thread. By the way, Kez, I saw your parting comment about the Celtic 2 thread, but I seem to have missed that one, and can't find it now.
I'm a bit tired tonight, so won't write much, but I will say I also have and like 2 albums by Kelpie, the live album, and one that's just called Kelpie. (Which doesn't seem to be showing up on eMu anymore, unless it's "misfiled". (Many things are!).
Anyway, hello to Kez, and I've already noticed a number of familiar names among the members here, so I'm happy to know people are still involved whether or not they still use eMusic.
I chickened out at the last moment and just put my account on hold for 30 days, but that time's almost up now and I've about decided to go ahead and hit the 'cancel' button. The only thing that made me second-think was my monthly 'loyalty' bonus, but it seems new subscribers are getting better deals anyway, so I see no real advantage to hanging onto my original subscription. The aggravation of so many things which I won't re-hash just dampened my overall enthusiasm.
I can't find the 'Celtic Music 2' thread now either, although I know it's there. I'm sure you could find it if you did a search within the message board. My computer doesn't have the cookies any more to get to it. But Mommio had raised the question in that thread whether you and I were on emusic any more. I figured if you were still there, you would have spoken up. I didn't post a comment simply because at that time I was too bummed out over emusic in general. There were a lot of recs I would ordinarily have posted on the messageboard (celtic and otherwise), but didn't for the same reason of being too discouraged with emusic in general. Still, one of the highlights of emusic for me was recommendations and conversations about music I got from their messageboard. So I hope you will be active over here.
I will have to check out that Kelpie self-titled album. It is on emusic here. It sounds really good and I would like to get it sometime. The Live! album, though, is probably going to be my favorite of theirs. I'm amazed how good that one is! I really, really love it. The sound quality and the tunes themselves are just really top-notch. I can't believe I sat on that one for so long before I discovered how good it is.
Hope to hear more from you soon!
Welcome to emusers.
Karen
- And there's quite a number of albums tagged Celtic, Scottish and so on.
There's got to be some gems there just waiting to be discovered. . .
The list looks worth checking out, which I plan to do when I get a chance. List here.
I got The Once yesterday at Amazon ... it's wonderful, particularly Margueritte and The Deserter.
I think this link is interesting - if you click on the tracks you get a very nice background of each traditional song and a short discussion of which other artists have recorded it. Some of them even have music transcriptions with tabs.
Kez, one of the bands on that list, Urban Folk Quartet, has a three-track, live ep available for free on their website.
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New album released in March 2011
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Maire Campbell is one-half of the Scottish duo "The Cast," who have released two previous superb albums - "The Winnowing" (which includes the track "Auld Lang Syne" used in the movie "Sex and the City"), and "Greengold." Both of them are available on emusic. [EDIT// Oops, I forgot they have a 3rd album "Colours Of Lichen" which has been on my list to get for quite a while.] My introduction to The Cast was through the album "Greengold," and it showcases what a great duo this group is! I was immediately impressed with Mairi's gorgeous vocals - she plays a fine fiddle and viola, too! - and her partner, Dave Francis, is a fine guitarist. Mairi has received the following awards:
Scots Singer of the Year trad music awards, 2008; Female musician of the year- liveireland 2009; Composition of the year liveireland 2009; Burnsong winner with Smile or Cry ( Greengold album) 2008; Overall winner of Neil Gow International compostion award 2009.
The single track "She Stitched Upon My Heart" is one featured on Mairi's new debut solo CD, due to be released on Monday, May 16. While it is a little 'folksier' sounding than the previous two CDs of "The Cast," it still has some selections of fine fiddling, and Mairi's gorgeous voice alone would make any song one you want to hear again and again. You can stream one of the songs from the new album HERE.
You can also download the song "Portobello Sands" FREE from Mairi's website HERE.
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Just discovered this 2004 debut album by a diverse group which includes Kris Drever and Nuala Kennedy among their members. Sounds like a fun album.
Edit - I see this is actually a new release , as a career retrospective - the CD isn't coming out until June 21th, and the MP3 version is $15.98 at Amazon so this is really a good buy.
Edit - After some listening time I really, really like this
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emusic has just added a whole slew of Dougie MacLean's albums - looks like probably all of them. MacLean has been frustrating to me, for he is the best traditional Scottish/Celtic artist EVER when he wants to be, but his more recent albums are more pop-folk which do not let him shine like he can shine.
His album "Tribute" is MacLean at his absolute best. I would rank this album as one of the top 5 Celtic traditional albums of all time. If you like Celtic music at all (and even if you don't), you should give this a listen. I can't imagine anyone not liking it. It's hauntingly gorgeous at times and gets your foot to tapping at others. An absolue desert-island disk for me, for sure.