Nuala Kennedy's 'The New Shoes' album launch

*****

See nualakennedy.com

Also compassrecords.com

Review by Dave "Angles" Gimble

The evening began with a short performance from "Bellevue rendezvous" who played a set of tunes from Finland, Sweden and Scotland, proving that folk from around the world can be mixed with, and stand along side that of Scotland's - as well as showing us that Scandinavian's like their folk raw, up beat and pounding.

The performance by Nuala Kennedy was an equal joy, the first surprise being the band itself - made up of artists well respected in their own right, Claire Mann amongst others, it was clear we were in for a night of high standards and were not disappointed.

Over the course of the night we were treated to a short selection of music from the album including a few traditional tunes, some old Irish songs and some original numbers. The most exciting thing about the music was the startling mix of influences and styles displayed. For this album Kennedy seems to have encompass any and every aspect from traditional Irish music to european styles to an almost Baltic sound and distilled it into one record.

Though the evening was undoubtedly of a very high quality in performance and fantastic music it seems a shame to me that an artist with a voice like Nuala Kennedy and an evident love of traditional song, displayed admirably on the album, should choose to play so many tunes at it's launch. Tunes aside though, this was a thoroughly enjoyable night and I recommend looking into the album "The New Shoes" at the first oppertunity.

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