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The new album is called UAM - U-A-M - which means 'From me' in Scottish Gaelic.

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This album is kind of from me, my little offering of songs and tunes.

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We wanted to do something a little bit different perhaps to what has come before

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we've toured so much over the last 2 years that every now and again a new song or tune

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has kind of come into our repertoire, and I suppose in a way this album really reflects travelling

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to the States, spending time in Ireland, all these things, whether you realise it or not, influence

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who you are as a musician, and what music you make.

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This album features our regular kind of core band that we tour with and it represents very much more

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the live act, the music that you will see on the stage at a concert or at a festival.

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That band consists of myself and my husband Ian Dooley from Dublin, playing bazzuki,

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and our guitarist Tony Byrne from Dublin also, Highland fiddler Duncan Chisom, and

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a great friend Martin O'Neil from Glasgow on bowrum.

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In addition to the core band as well we had some great special guests, we had the very

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talented Tom Dooley playing flute on this album..(unintelligible)..Jerry Douglas from the States who plays

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Dobro on a couple of tracks.

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We had the pleasure and honour of recording a couple of songs with a great friend of mine

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a wonderful Gaelic singer from Lewis called Mary Smith.

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Mary has been a great friend to me over the years and a very generous sharer of songs.

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We also collaborated with Sharon Shannon and she played box on a couple of tracks which was fantastic

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to have her, and also our great friends from Scotland Alan McDonald on pipes and vocals as well,

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and Phil Cunningham on piano, and the wonderful Eddi Reader, who did a duet with Eddi

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and even managed to get her to sing in Gaelic as well. Also we were joined by my little sister Michelle

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who came and sang on a couple of tracks with us which was great.

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2 years ago at a festival in Brittany the organisers asked us to perform a Brittan song,

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which we fell in love with there and then. The words they lend themselves very well to the Gaelic

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tradition and they seem to have a lot of connections, but the melody is very different.

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There are 2 songs on this album that are actually connected, and they are both about

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the universal theme of jealously and specifically the story of the jealous sister which appears

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in folk songs and tales throughout all mainland Europe and the States as well.

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We picked 2 songs and put them together. 1 is a traditional song, a walking song from the

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Hebrides called 'Thig am bata'.

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The other 1 is from the Irish-American tradition and is called 'the wind and rain'.

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...and we took half of the song and we translated it back into Gaelic, trying to make it come full-circle

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in a way and myself and Eddi Reader shared this song.

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We do 1 song on the new album which is called 'M fhearann saidhbhir' and it's a walking

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song, and this is the type of song that is very particular to the Gaelic tradition,

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and would have been a working song, would have been sung traditionally by a woman,

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accompanied by many other women, but we didn't have that many women in the band so we had

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to get all the men to sing but they do a really good job.

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I also had the pleasure of recording a song with the great piper from Glenuig Alan McDonald,

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and we recorded a song together called 'A mhic dhughaill ic ruaridh' which means

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'Son of Dougal, sun of ruaridh' and this is a beautiful and very intense and at times slightly obscure song.

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[speaking gaelic]

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which means 'it was climbing the garden that you gave the first shout my darling, it was

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descending the slope that you received the fatal blow, and the blood on your lovely chest

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pouring through your shirt, and although I drank my love sum of it it did not healing of your wounds'.

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After concentrating so much on the last album it's great to move on to something else

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and really get some new energy from new music, and we're looking forward to taking it out on the road

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and we've had a great time doing it, and we hope you like it too.