Sowulo releases a new album GRIMA

02 Apr


Last Monday Sowulo announced that their new album GRIMA will be released coming friday, the 3th of april. according to Faber: “In the last past months I worked on the upcoming Sowulo album. Again I did my best to do something unexpected. I teamed up with Tumulus to create something truly unique.
The upcoming GRIMA album contains an immersive combination of Storytelling and Atmospheric music. Tumulus aka Niek van Eck did what he does best: storytelling like a mad skald-wizard, and I had to honour to add some cinematic tune to it.
We recorded GRIMA from a place of deep presence, rooted in ancient stories of wisdom.’ The artwork, Faber told us: ‘Consists of drawings by Niek van Eck edited by Jasper van Gheluwe .
Friday the 3th of April, American time, GRIMA will be digitally released on all the major platforms and smaller platforms, including Spotify and Sowulo’s Bandcamp page here, where we can all listen the album for the first time. Expect stories of Nordic saga told by Tumulus with compositions by Faber Horbachs hand under it. Indeed something truly unique.
The physical album release will take a bit longer. But just might be worth the wait. Of course will keep you informed on that.

picture by: Rebeca Franco Valle

Hamish Napier releases third folk concept album

30 Mar


After his 2016 concept album The River and the 2018 folk concept album The Railway, former Back of the Moon multi-instrumentalist Hamis Napier released his third folk concept album The Woods last Friday -the 20th of March- in a spontaneous Facebook live community listening session, due to the corona restrictions preventing the originally planned release mini-tour to go through. We, as CeltCast did not let this opportunity to listen to the new album together with so many other fans pass by, and I can assure you The Woods has been spinning its rounds many a time at CeltCast HQ since that moment.
Just as The River and The railway before it, The Woods is a themed Celtic folk CD, in this case, sponsored by Cairngorms connect, a partnership of neighbouring land managers, committed to a bold and ambitious 200-year vision to enhance habitats, species and ecological processes across a vast area within the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland.

Hamish Napier himself writes about this album:
– “We humans are tree creatures. After the last ice age 100 centuries ago, the forests expanded across the barren landscape and with it the human population. Woods and man evolved together. Let us regain the forests and our common knowledge of them. The 18 letters of the Gaelic alphabet were traditionally taught to children through the old names for the native trees (plus a few shrubs). I have written a tune for each letter and included all the native trees that can be found locally in the wild. There are 2 trees for each of the letters G, R and U. There are tunes for forest flora and fauna listed in Scots. I have included descriptions, facts and uses for each tree. All 26 tunes are rooted in traditional Scottish folk dance tune forms, woven in contemporary arrangements and enhanced with field recordings made in the woods. For me, this is an album of identity, exploring my native languages, music, folklore and natural environment. “

All this inspiration accumulated in a beautiful conceptual Celtic folk CD with equally stunning artwork according to our reviewer Cliff.
As you read this we are hard at work to try and add The Woods – as well as The River and The Railway – to our radio stream AND you can expect a full review of all three albums by Cliff in the coming weeks.

The Woods is available through Hamish Napier‘s bandcamp page.

We would like to know what you would like to see

26 Mar
The beginning of the survey

It’s probably no surprise to you that we are always busy at CeltCast. Right now, we are making lots of new stuff that we are very exited to share. But we also want to know what kind of content you would like to see, so we’ve made a survey. We would be delighted if you could fill in these eight questions for us.
You can find the survey here!

Right now, we are also making a series about forgotten folk instruments. Is there a weird, forgotten or inspiring instrument you would like to see us make content about? Let us know by sending us an e-mail to: catoverhoeven@ziggo.nl!

Join the Quarantine Concert!

14 Mar
If you have nothing to do today, our friends from Plunder and Joint String Friends are giving a online concert. At 17:00h this afternoon, they will stream their ‘Plundered Friends Quarantine Concert’ from Twitch. Make sure to tune in here: Plundered Friends at Twitch!

Share the love and pain

14 Mar
Alex and Helen at the Midwinter fair

Since earlier this week, having active social media channels has been hard. It is heartbreaking to read all the posts about cancelled and postponed festivals, concerts, and shows.

While we were geared up and ready to start the new festival season, it has been so painful to see that events like Echos & Merveilles – Festival Médiéval Fantastique and Mead & Greed Festival 2020 cancel this year’s events, but also to hear about the fear for Elfia‘s festival at the end of April.

Just as painful is seeing our friends of Sunfire, Rapalje Celtic Folk Music, Cuélebre, The Royal Spuds and so many more having to cancel or move shows. Even worse, thinking about our Italian friends of EMIAN PaganFolk Music, Celkilt and The SIDH, they are litterally locked up in their country. All these artists are faced with weeks of uncertainty.

Not to mention all the people working in this business who are losing weeks of salary due to something as seemingly small as a virus.

Even though we are faced with similar issues, we at CeltCast want all of our friends to know that we think about you all and are there with you all step by step. Let us all hope the issues with this virus are solved quickly and that we can refocus on the joy and happiness music, concerts and festivals bring.

Let’s put our effort in this together, and let us hope that this is just a bumpy start to an awesome season!







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