The new album is called UAM - U-A-M - which means 'From me' in Scottish Gaelic.
This album is kind of from me, my little offering of songs and tunes.
We wanted to do something a little bit different perhaps to what has come before
we've toured so much over the last 2 years that every now and again a new song or tune
has kind of come into our repertoire, and I suppose in a way this album really reflects travelling
to the States, spending time in Ireland, all these things, whether you realise it or not, influence
who you are as a musician, and what music you make.
This album features our regular kind of core band that we tour with and it represents very much more
the live act, the music that you will see on the stage at a concert or at a festival.
That band consists of myself and my husband Ian Dooley from Dublin, playing bazzuki,
and our guitarist Tony Byrne from Dublin also, Highland fiddler Duncan Chisom, and
a great friend Martin O'Neil from Glasgow on bowrum.
In addition to the core band as well we had some great special guests, we had the very
talented Tom Dooley playing flute on this album..(unintelligible)..Jerry Douglas from the States who plays
Dobro on a couple of tracks.
We had the pleasure and honour of recording a couple of songs with a great friend of mine
a wonderful Gaelic singer from Lewis called Mary Smith.
Mary has been a great friend to me over the years and a very generous sharer of songs.
We also collaborated with Sharon Shannon and she played box on a couple of tracks which was fantastic
to have her, and also our great friends from Scotland Alan McDonald on pipes and vocals as well,
and Phil Cunningham on piano, and the wonderful Eddi Reader, who did a duet with Eddi
and even managed to get her to sing in Gaelic as well. Also we were joined by my little sister Michelle
who came and sang on a couple of tracks with us which was great.
2 years ago at a festival in Brittany the organisers asked us to perform a Brittan song,
which we fell in love with there and then. The words they lend themselves very well to the Gaelic
tradition and they seem to have a lot of connections, but the melody is very different.
There are 2 songs on this album that are actually connected, and they are both about
the universal theme of jealously and specifically the story of the jealous sister which appears
in folk songs and tales throughout all mainland Europe and the States as well.
We picked 2 songs and put them together. 1 is a traditional song, a walking song from the
Hebrides called 'Thig am bata'.
The other 1 is from the Irish-American tradition and is called 'the wind and rain'.
...and we took half of the song and we translated it back into Gaelic, trying to make it come full-circle
in a way and myself and Eddi Reader shared this song.
We do 1 song on the new album which is called 'M fhearann saidhbhir' and it's a walking
song, and this is the type of song that is very particular to the Gaelic tradition,
and would have been a working song, would have been sung traditionally by a woman,
accompanied by many other women, but we didn't have that many women in the band so we had
to get all the men to sing but they do a really good job.
I also had the pleasure of recording a song with the great piper from Glenuig Alan McDonald,
and we recorded a song together called 'A mhic dhughaill ic ruaridh' which means
'Son of Dougal, sun of ruaridh' and this is a beautiful and very intense and at times slightly obscure song.
[speaking gaelic]
which means 'it was climbing the garden that you gave the first shout my darling, it was
descending the slope that you received the fatal blow, and the blood on your lovely chest
pouring through your shirt, and although I drank my love sum of it it did not healing of your wounds'.
After concentrating so much on the last album it's great to move on to something else
and really get some new energy from new music, and we're looking forward to taking it out on the road
and we've had a great time doing it, and we hope you like it too.