New CD based on Speech Patterns of Musicians
Speech Project is a live show and now an album of new compositions by fiddle player Gerry Diver based on original recordings of Shane MacGowan, Damien Dempsey, Christy Moore, Martin Hayes and Danny Meehan talking to Diver, and on archive interviews with Joe Cooley and Margaret Barry.
The pieces are built up from and around the inherent pitch and rhythm of the speech patterns recorded, and while the music borrows from traditional Irish idioms it has mostly a composed and arranged modern form. It was described by one of the interviewees as ‘a kind of folk minimalism on the cutting edge of folk crossover’.
At previous live performances the musicians have included Diver himself, Lisa Knapp (dulcimer, fiddle and vocals), Gaz Wilkins (piano), Fransesca Ta-Berg (cello), Colman Connolly (uillean pipes) and Declan Daly (fiddle).
The album is due for release here on Friday, 3 February. A tour is scheduled in the UK for March. Irish dates have yet to be announced.
Published on 1 February 2012
