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CD
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GB 176CD
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$15.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 6/27/2025
"This record follows the embrace of winter time; the closing in of darkness, the cold, the pull to turn inward. But also, the customs of the season, and gathering for the ceilidh: songs and stories told round the fire; where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur."
Thus, Brìghde Chaimbeul introduces her third album, a release which comes after two years of incredible acclaim for its predecessor Carry Them With Us (GB 139CD/LP), which won awards from such diverse places as The Guardian (Best Folk Album Of 2023 #7) and The Quietus (Best Albums of 2023 #13). Since that album, she has played stages from Tennessee to Denmark, often far outside the traditional/folk circuit where she first made her name, and often playing for audiences who'd never seen someone play small pipes before. To appear alone on the main stage at 2024's Supersonic Festival in Birmingham and reduce a hungover festival crowd to rapt silence probably isn't what Chaimbeul expected, and nor would she have expected to be hailed as leading a revival of interest in an instrument that was arguably fading into obscurity. Sunwise is more a solo record than Carry Them With Us, which saw her collaborate with acclaimed artist and peripatetic collaborator Colin Stetson. Chaimbeul explains that she'd spent the last two years playing live solo, "so that's where I was naturally going at the time of recording, most of the collaborators came on after I had recorded my parts," the exception being "Sguabag/The Sweeper" where she recorded live with the three other pipers. She explains that she's learned a great deal about how to record her instrument, where "a lot of it is about tone, and the depth and richness of that tone, paying attention to detail -- what mics you're using, and how to get the best sound possible." However, Stetson returns on the rousing, whirling "A Chailleach," which also features Chaimbeul's lovely, sparingly used voice. Sunwise is a remarkable album, a record steeped in folklore and tradition but also embracing minimalism, experimentation and the eternal presence of the drone. Her love for this music, these traditions and shared stories, shines through everything she does: "It's a music and language that has survived so much and for so long -- it's the music of people. It's music of the land. And I think it's extremely relevant to hold on to that and learn from that in current times."
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LP
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GB 176LP
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$28.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 6/27/2025
LP version. "This record follows the embrace of winter time; the closing in of darkness, the cold, the pull to turn inward. But also, the customs of the season, and gathering for the ceilidh: songs and stories told round the fire; where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur."
Thus, Brìghde Chaimbeul introduces her third album, a release which comes after two years of incredible acclaim for its predecessor Carry Them With Us (GB 139CD/LP), which won awards from such diverse places as The Guardian (Best Folk Album Of 2023 #7) and The Quietus (Best Albums of 2023 #13). Since that album, she has played stages from Tennessee to Denmark, often far outside the traditional/folk circuit where she first made her name, and often playing for audiences who'd never seen someone play small pipes before. To appear alone on the main stage at 2024's Supersonic Festival in Birmingham and reduce a hungover festival crowd to rapt silence probably isn't what Chaimbeul expected, and nor would she have expected to be hailed as leading a revival of interest in an instrument that was arguably fading into obscurity. Sunwise is more a solo record than Carry Them With Us, which saw her collaborate with acclaimed artist and peripatetic collaborator Colin Stetson. Chaimbeul explains that she'd spent the last two years playing live solo, "so that's where I was naturally going at the time of recording, most of the collaborators came on after I had recorded my parts," the exception being "Sguabag/The Sweeper" where she recorded live with the three other pipers. She explains that she's learned a great deal about how to record her instrument, where "a lot of it is about tone, and the depth and richness of that tone, paying attention to detail -- what mics you're using, and how to get the best sound possible." However, Stetson returns on the rousing, whirling "A Chailleach," which also features Chaimbeul's lovely, sparingly used voice. Sunwise is a remarkable album, a record steeped in folklore and tradition but also embracing minimalism, experimentation and the eternal presence of the drone. Her love for this music, these traditions and shared stories, shines through everything she does: "It's a music and language that has survived so much and for so long -- it's the music of people. It's music of the land. And I think it's extremely relevant to hold on to that and learn from that in current times."
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CD
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GB 139CD
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Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of experimental Celtic music. Her piping has earned her a BBC Young Folk Award and a BBC Horizon Award. Her second album Carry Them With Us is an exhilarating weave of rich textural drones, trance atmospheres and instrumental folk traditions. Acclaimed Canadian sound explorer and saxophonist Colin Stetson is a featured collaborator on the record. Stories can be told in music as well as words, and on her second album, Carry Them With Us, Brìghde Chaimbeul reveals hers. From her heart, from the Scottish tradition that formed her. And every one of them weaves its spell, as a good story should. The Scottish smallpipes, with their double-note drones, were in danger of falling into obscurity before Brìghde (pronounced Bree-chuh) Chaimbeul, a native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, became part of their more recent revival. Carry Them With Us is undoubtedly Chaimbeul's vision, but collaborator Colin Stetson, an experimental saxophonist and film composer probably best known for his work with Arcade Fire, helped her realize it. They seem to inhabit the same space, breathe the same air. Often, it's hard to tell where one instrument ends and the other begins - as she notes, "his style and breathing fit with the pipes." It's hypnotic, alive -- listen to "Tha Fonn Gun Bhi Trom: I Am Disposed of Mirth," where the music sometimes seems to suddenly bubble and flutter into the air. With the constancy of the drone as their foundation, and small changes to the melodies as they progressed, the music becomes immersive as Chaimbeul and Stetson weave over and around each other. Together, they created an album of stories. Some, like "Crònan (i)" came spontaneously as the pair played in the studio. Others, "Pilliù: The Call of the Redshank" and "Pìobaireachd Nan Eun: The Birds," grew from traditional pieces. Old things, stories, birdsong, are part of the tradition that surrounded Chaimbeul as she grew up. Chaimbeul tells them with a voice that's completely her own. Her singing at the close of "Bonn Beinn Eadarra: The Haunting," arrives like a ghost, its spectral feel lingering long after the track is over. On "Banish the Giant of Doubt And Despair," her playing brings the tale alive, as the daughter of the king of the land under the waves sings a tune before her wedding, and then when a giant, marauding the Western Isles, hears her. Enraptured, he cannot stop dancing, he ends up in the Atlantic, to the island of Hiort, where he topples over and drowns. It's storytelling in music, the past given new colors.
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LP
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GB 139LP
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LP version. Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of experimental Celtic music. Her piping has earned her a BBC Young Folk Award and a BBC Horizon Award. Her second album Carry Them With Us is an exhilarating weave of rich textural drones, trance atmospheres and instrumental folk traditions. Acclaimed Canadian sound explorer and saxophonist Colin Stetson is a featured collaborator on the record. Stories can be told in music as well as words, and on her second album, Carry Them With Us, Brìghde Chaimbeul reveals hers. From her heart, from the Scottish tradition that formed her. And every one of them weaves its spell, as a good story should. The Scottish smallpipes, with their double-note drones, were in danger of falling into obscurity before Brìghde (pronounced Bree-chuh) Chaimbeul, a native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, became part of their more recent revival. Carry Them With Us is undoubtedly Chaimbeul's vision, but collaborator Colin Stetson, an experimental saxophonist and film composer probably best known for his work with Arcade Fire, helped her realize it. They seem to inhabit the same space, breathe the same air. Often, it's hard to tell where one instrument ends and the other begins - as she notes, "his style and breathing fit with the pipes." It's hypnotic, alive -- listen to "Tha Fonn Gun Bhi Trom: I Am Disposed of Mirth," where the music sometimes seems to suddenly bubble and flutter into the air. With the constancy of the drone as their foundation, and small changes to the melodies as they progressed, the music becomes immersive as Chaimbeul and Stetson weave over and around each other. Together, they created an album of stories. Some, like "Crònan (i)" came spontaneously as the pair played in the studio. Others, "Pilliù: The Call of the Redshank" and "Pìobaireachd Nan Eun: The Birds," grew from traditional pieces. Old things, stories, birdsong, are part of the tradition that surrounded Chaimbeul as she grew up. Chaimbeul tells them with a voice that's completely her own. Her singing at the close of "Bonn Beinn Eadarra: The Haunting," arrives like a ghost, its spectral feel lingering long after the track is over. On "Banish the Giant of Doubt And Despair," her playing brings the tale alive, as the daughter of the king of the land under the waves sings a tune before her wedding, and then when a giant, marauding the Western Isles, hears her. Enraptured, he cannot stop dancing, he ends up in the Atlantic, to the island of Hiort, where he topples over and drowns. It's storytelling in music, the past given new colors.
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