Ear Trumpet Music presents a magical, intimate, sit-down gig of great folk music
The Damien O’Kane Trio:
Damien O’Kane is a Northern Irish musician of many talents. Teamed up with master guitarist Steven Byrnes (Treacherous Orchestra/Kate Rusby) and Steven Iveson’s (Damien O’Kane Band) sublime and exhilarating electric guitar playing, this is a trio that take traditional Irish music and song and, in the words of the The Telegraph, turn it into ‘Folk-Pop that is Irish music for the 21st Century.’
O’Kane is a singer. A very good one, too, with a relaxed, assured, hypnotic vocal style that exudes a natural warmth and empathy with the colourful characters who occupy his songs. Added to his accomplished banjo and guitar skills, he is an artist of rich imagination and fearless vision.
Steeped in music, Damien grew up in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, with a deep respect and understanding of the folk tradition, yet which also forged a healthy appetite to explore its broadest borders and test its boundaries. All of which has culminated in his 2015 solo album ‘Areas Of High Traffic’ which, apart from proving he scrubs up well for a cover photo, takes some of the greatest songs in the folk canon – ‘The Blacksmith’, ‘The Banks Of The Bann’, ‘I Am A Youth’ and ‘The Green Fields Of America’ included – and reinvents them in refreshingly original ways.
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2016 nominee for Best Album
“As magnificent a re-imagining of traditional folk as you are likely to hear.”
★★★★★ Sunday Express
“Could well become a crossover commercial success.”
★★★★ Guardian
Daoirí Farrell:
A former electrician, who decided to change profession after seeing Christy Moore perform on Irish TV, Dublin-born traditional singer and bouzouki player Daoirí (pronounced ‘Derry’) Farrell is being described by some of the biggest names in Irish folk music as one of most important singers to come out of Ireland in recent years, and has delivered the album to prove them right.
After a promising debut album, The First Turn, back in 2009; Daoirí spent several years studying traditional music and performance at The University of Limerick. It was here that Fintan Vallely introduced him to the singing of the late Liam Weldon, an encounter that was to prove formative to his sound and his approach to folk song.
“Daoirí is one of the most important traditional singers to emerge in the last decade.”
Dónal Lunny
“I’ve been listening to Daoirí’s emerging sounds since first hearing him at the Góilin Singers Club in Dublin when he was a young lad….always a treat to hear him sing.”
Christy Moore
“Daoirí is a bit of a force of nature really. A rootsy one-man-band storyteller with great humour and presence and moments of heartfelt sensitivity.”
Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2 Folk Show