Mick O'Brien
&
Caoimhín ÓRaghallaigh
Kitty Lie Over
ACM Records ACM CD 102
Mick O'Brien
&
Caoimhín ÓRaghallaigh
Kitty Lie Over
ACM Records ACM CD 102
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1. Kitty
Lie Over/ Click on underlined titles to hear sound samples with Real Player |
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Two of Ireland's most respected and sought after musicians have pooled their many talents and come up with a gem of a recording.
'Kitty Lie Over'
is the new CD album from Mick O'Brien and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh.
Launched at the Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay on July 6th 2003,
it is their first album together, and contains 15 tracks of unaccompanied traditional
music on uilleann pipes, fiddle and whistles. There is a strong emphasis
on rare and interesting versions of tunes. Mick and Caoimhín, both
from Dublin (one Northsider and one Southsider), are highly regarded musicians
in traditional music circles.
The music on this CD is played in the pitches of B and Bb. Eleven tracks
are pipes and fiddle duets, two tracks are whistle duets, and two tracks are
fiddle and whistle duets.
Mick O'Brien
Born into a musical family on 26th March 1961, Mick started learning the pipes
at nine years of age. His first teachers at the Piper's Club in Thomas Street
were Leon Rowsome, Mick Tuohy and Seán Seery. Mick O'Brien is now widely
regarded as one of Ireland's great musicians. His solo album 'The May Morning
Dew', released in 1996, (available from Copperplate) was received with great
critical acclaim all over the world. He is in constant demand both as a solo
performer, with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, with the Norwegian groups
Vamp, Hanne Krogh and Secret Garden, and as a recording artist who has appeared
on many albums over the last two decades. Mick lives in Dublin and is a schoolteacher.
Caoimhín
(pronounced queeeveen) O'Raghallaigh. (Kevin O'Reilly).
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh was born on 28th August 1979. He started
learning music at the Craobh Naithí classes in Ballinteer. Michael Tubridy,
who taught flute and whistle, used to bring in archival recordings and discuss
the music with the class. This introduction to the old music developed over
time, and Caoimhín has since delved extensively into archival recordings
of old fiddle players such as Pádraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy, Patrick
Kelly and Mrs. Galvin. He worked part-time at the Irish Traditional Music Archive
while studying Theoretical Physics at Trinity College Dublin. Caoimhín
lives in Miltown Malbay where he is learning to make flat pitch uilleann pipes.
"Nowadays, traditional Irish music has become a very wide spectrum of sounds and ideas. I hope its heart will never be too far away from the kind of music we can hear on this recording. Mick O'Brien and Kevin O'Reilly, both skilled and sensitive musicians - have delved into the past and located a selection of musical gens, all of which have come up sparkling!
Everything sounds right - the selection of tunes is interesting and attractive. The choice is from a wide variety of sources, both written and recorded, from some great players and from different parts of Ireland. The music is played with enjoyment and ease, yet with the right amount of respect, bringing out its essential good nature. And for any two instruments playing together in traditional Irish music, the sound of the pipes and fiddle is as good as you'll ever get.
The distinctive musicof Sliabh Luachra is celebrated by the pipes and fiddle of Mick and Kevin on several tracks on this recording. The sound brings me pleasantly back to some all-too-short holidays my family spent during the 1960s in the home of Denis Murphy and his wife, Julia Mary in Lisheen, Gneeveguilla, Co Kerry - a place where good music and good humour abounded.
On this recording, we hear some wonderful music from the Irish tradition, alive and well and thriving, as it should be", Peter Browne, RTE Producer/uilleann piper.
Copperplate is
very proud to have this title on our roster and to help it achieve its full
potential will be supporting this release with a full-scale promotional mail
out to media and retail. Feedback always welcome.
Press Reaction
FolkWorld
CD Reviews
The herrings are boiled and the praties are roasting, Kitty lie over close to
the wall!
The a line borrowed from the Irish jig "The Frost is All Over". Dubliners north and south, Mick O'Brien (uilleann pipes, whistle) and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (fiddle, whistle), meet. And it wasn't in the midst of the muddy river Liffey, though one may say this record is a landmark like the newly erected Millennium Spire on O'Connell Street.
These days there seems to be a trend to the pure drop. 15 tracks including 11 pipes/fiddle duets, 2 whistle duets, and 2 fiddle/whistle duets. The only accompaniment is the drones and regulators of the uilleann pipes. These are pitched in Bb, and the fiddle is obviously tuned down. Thus the sound is mellow and smooth.
There is a fondness for Sliabh Luachra music, Mick and Caoimhín pay homage to the great names, Denis Murphy, Patrick Kelly. The latter is almost forgotten:
Isn't it shocking that with all the recordings available nowadays, you can't get a single track of this most wonderful of fiddle players. If you were to give him a few bits of cast-off tunes, he would sculpt them into something that could fly - like making an aeroplane out of a scrapheap..
Mick and Caoimhín give their best to continue this legacy. As Peter Browne puts it in the liner notes: Everything sounds right! Walkin' T:-)M
IRISH ECHO Newspaper. New York City
CEOL
Column
By Earle Hitchner
Top 10 Traditional
Albums of 2003
Number
1. KITTY LIE OVER, by Mick O'Brien and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh
(ACMCD 102)
The uilleann piping of Dublin's Mick O'Brien first earned international recognition
through his teenage performances on two late-'70s recordings, "The Piper's Rock"
and "The Flags of Dublin.
" In 1996, he issued a superb solo debut, "May Morning Dew," that finished in
the Irish Echo's list of top 10 albums.
Now comes "Kitty Lie Over," a duet album with fellow Dublin-born musician Caoimhín
Ó Raghallaigh that surpasses
O'Brien's earlier achievements.
In Ó Raghallaigh, O'Brien has found a fiddler whose style is an ideal
match to his tonally rich, expressive chanter, regulator,
and drone work. This is much more than two talented instrumentalists getting
together in the studio for some tunes.
They've carefully worked out the repertoire (much of it drawn from Sliabh Luachra),
arrangements, pitch (B or B-flat),
and harmonies that allow them to truly marry their instruments, one complementing
and extending and bolstering the other.
Ó Raghallaigh is himself an accomplished uilleann piper and pipemaker
(apprenticed to Geoff Wooff in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare), so his pipes-like
style and reflexes on fiddle add immeasurably to his duets with O'Brien.
The 11 pipes-and-fiddle tracks are wondrous, with "Woman of the House/Rolling
in the Ryegrass" a shining example of this interplay, and there are also some
tantalizing whistle and fiddle-and-whistle duets.
Hands down (or should I say up?), this is the most impressive Irish traditional
instrumental CD of 2003 and one of the best in many years. [Published on January
21, 2004, in the IRISH ECHO newspaper in New York City. Copyright © Earle
Hitchner. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of author.]
Irish
Music Review.com
2003 might be remembered as Irish traditional music’s year of the duo. True,
there have been some great pairings in the past – Sligo’s Peter Horan and Fred
Flynn and Clare’s Noel Hill and Tony Linnane spring immediately to mind – and
more recent times have seen the princely duos of both Begley and Cooney and
Hayes and Cahill.
One such combination destined to be regarded with similar affection consists
of two Dubliners, the uilleann piper Mick O’Brien and the young fiddler Caoimhín
Ó Raghallaigh. Mick has been active musically for the last couple of
decades or so and might be known to some through his own solo album, May Morning
Dew, and an earlier recording with the fiddler Paddy Glackin, The Flags of Dublin.
However, apart from appearing on the Cló Iar-Chonnachta compilation Cumar,
Caoimhín’s only previous recording was his very limited-edition unaccompanied
Turas go Tír na nÓg, an album paying homage to the great fiddlers
of Sliabh Luachra, such as Pádraig O’Keeffe. There’s something utterly
unique and exhilarating about the sound of fiddle and pipes together and, on
Kitty Lie Over, Mick and Caoimhín combine to produce emphatic, uplifting,
sometimes breathtaking music. In so doing, they doff their caps to many a fine
musician from the past, drawing inspiration from sources as varied as Séamus
Ennis, the Clare fiddler Patrick Kelly, Willie Clancy and the Donegal fiddler
Neillidh Boyle (a flabbergasting version of Biddy from Sligo). A sumptuous album
in all respects, Kitty Lie Over has already come to be regarded as a masterpiece!
Geoff Wallis
Pay
The Reckoning Music Web Site. Oct 2003
O'Brien (pipes/whistles) and O Raghallaigh (fiddle/whistles) play music with
passion, spirit and energy. And above all else, sheer good humour.
"Kitty Lie Over" had us grinning like a Cheshire cat from the first time we
gave the disc a spin and it's made many a visit to the CD player over the course
of the past few days to put paid to the Autumn blues!
The lads pay homage to the music of the Sliabh Luachra masters to such an extent that Denis Murphy ought to get a credit as the third member of their musical gang. And yet they have a distinctive, unhurried and individualistic style. O'Brien and O Raghallaigh are not merely players, they are truly artists who have worked out for themselves what they want to achieve and have set about realising a lofty ambition.
The opening jig set, "Kitty Lie Over/The Munster Buttermilk", sets the scene. To open the album with such a popular tune, also known as "The Frost Is All Over", is a shrewd move. We've heard so many classic versions of the tune - Ennis' and Planxty's versions must surely stand out as among the best-loved, well-known and utterly memorable - that immediately we are able to home in on the pair's ability to "claim" a tune. Their fluency, subtlety, confidence and earthy joie de vivre come across loud and clear within a few bars and leave the listener in no doubt that these are as gifted a duo as you're likely to encounter.
The promise of the first set holds true throughout the album. Whether they're playing superb reel sets ("Teampall an Ghleanntain/Hickey's", "Woman Of The House/Rolling In The Ryegrass", "The Lady On The Island/Seanbhean na gCartai", "The Copperplate/Paddy Gone To France/The Wind That Shakes The Barley", "Dillon Brown/Sarah Hobbs" and "The Silver Spear/Mullin's Fancy") or cracking slide or jig sets ("Mickey Callaghan's Slide/Winnie Hayes' Jig", "Biddy From Sligo/Punch For The Ladies", "Rathawaun/The Hare In The Corn", "The Sporting Pitchfork/The Rambling Pitchfork" and "Na Ceannabhain Bhana/Mairseail Alasdruim/Munster Buttermilk" - a different and unrelated tune to the that in the opening set), the pair never falter in their ability to communicate their infectious affinity for the music.
O Raghallaigh's
notes on each set are as informative and inspiring as they are personal, witty
and touching. And Peter Browne's ringing endorsement of the album sums up what
most listeners will feel after giving it a listen. "Everything sounds right
... the music is played with enjoyment and ease, yet with the right amount of
respect."
A real treasure, which we hope will gain the lads a horde of new listeners.
Irish Music
Magazine October 2003 Review
As a ham fisted accompanist I couldn't take this CD out of the machine, it's
been my favourite disc for the past couple of months.
Probably the most pure drop duo recording of the past half year, (and it's great
for working out bouzouki licks, so much space to let your imagination run riot),
but it's much more than that folks, it's special In the Claddagh New Releases
web site they say it is "indispensable" and how right they are.
It's an album you can take at many levels, the gloriously tight duet work, the
absence of accompanists (ham fisted or otherwise) tunes played at a good lick
without making the CD player smoke, drawing you into the magical world of the
older more melodic tradition.
What I find attractive is the raw honesty in the recording, O'Brien's pipes
actually sound like pipes and invariably the piping tracks start with the warm
welcome of the drones, that honeyed sound that is often missing on commercial
recording of the pipes, on this album it is hive full.
New technology has been catered for, run this through your PC and Windows Media
Player lists the names of the tracks and the selections which would be a boon
if I were to wanted to list off names of sets.
There's another welcome addition to this album the subtle "nyah" or note bending
that was a common feature of Irish music in the past, before furious ensemble
playing reduced the music to a torrent of blurred water.
Just listen to The Lady on the Island where the fiddle takes time to
pull the long note over the trill of a whistle. The track An Londubh
reminds me of fiddle payer Matt Cranitch and a version he played with Na Fili,
but then there is a strong Sliabh Luachra connection on this album with both
players paying homage to the memory of Dennis Murphy, with the opening track
Kitty Lie Over being followed by it's Kerry variant Munster Buttermilk,
learnt from Murphy's album The Star Above the Garter.
Peter Browne sums up the album in a neat sentence in the liner notes, "Everything
sounds right and the selection of tunes is interesting and attractive," Peter
is not a man given to hyperbole, take it from the pair of us this is one for
the long road.
Sean Laffey
The Irish Times,
Thursday 14.08.2003
"There's a spirit and high kick to this music that's not too often captured
in the studio...
A niftier mood enhancer than any drug therapy" Siobhán
Long
The Irish Examiner,
Thursday 21.08.2003
Duet playing is a delight from these masters
Solo performance may be widely acknowledged as the purest form of traditional
music, but duet playing is surely the most fascinating. When it's done well,
when both players combine to create music that is greater than the sum of its
parts, it
weaves a particular spell. There's an interesting psychology involved.
Each musician must
subjugate at least part of his or her musical personality, but must retain enough
in order that the overall performance doesn't fall flat.
It isn't a matter of finding just any pair of musicians. In order to succeed
they must share a range of characteristics,
not least of which is an almost telepathic understanding of their common goal.
From beginning to end, Kitty Lie Over, the new album from uilleann piper Mick O'Brien and fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, is an absolute joy. Pure duet albums are a relative rarirty; most opt for at least some form of accompaniment.
Here, O'Brien and
Ó Raghallaigh have sufficient confidence in the inherent quality of the
music - and in their own abilities -
to present the tunes unadorned. These players have an uncanny degree of coordination.
Their playing is not quite exact unison, yet it is instinctively complementary. The music is delicious, both in selection and in execution.
O'Brien and Ó
Raghallaigh look to past masters for inspiration. Old recordings and tune-books
are trawled for tunes.
Fiddle player such as Pádraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy, Julia Clifford
and Patrick Kelly, pipers such as Séamus Ennis,
Willie Clancy and Tommy Reck, and whistle players such as Micho Russell all
play their part. While they may call on the heroes of old for stimulation, their
music is resolutely their own.
Kitty Lie Over
and Munster Buttermilk, both variants of The Frost is All Over, are led by O'Brien's
B flat pipes, with Ó Raghallaigh tucking in behind a full two tones down
from his usual slot on the frequency spectrum. The same low
partnership continues on a great pair of reels, Teampall an Ghleanntáin/Hickey's
Reel. Fiddle and whistle come to fore for Mickey Callaghan's Slide, a track
imbued with the spirit - and even the sound - of that legendary Sliabh Luachra
recording, The Star above the Garter.
The self-same sibling source of Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford is invoked for the slides, Rathawaun and The Hare in the Corn, played "so that you might be tempted to find the Star for yourself!" Twin whistles provide contrast on The Cocktail/The Fairy Reel/I Have No Money ("the title is regrettably indicative of my current fincancial situation," says Caoimhín). And so it continues right to the closing track, The Silver Spear/Mullin's Fancy.
The technique is
effortless; the tempo is steady and unhurried. There is no flash and no need
for it. These boys genuinely love the music and they want you to love it too.
They understand the importance of a sense of joy and magic.
O'Brien and Ó Raghallaigh have produced a worthy companion piece to The
Star Above the Garter. Pat Aherne
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