Viral Sessions: Chapter 2 – 141 artists, 5 cats, some goldfish and 1 parrot!

19 Apr


The last couple of months we have been hard at work at CeltCast HQ, to not only bring you all the best acoustic folk music we can find, but also to give you – listeners and readers – as much background info as we possibly can. One of the things we were working on was getting a news staff together that would try and collect background information on our favourite style of music; would do interviews with artists; would do festival reports and share all the other folk related news that we could find.
Well with the start of the Corona crisis we stepped up our game a bit and went for it, hence the news items you are seeing on our page the last weeks. So if bands, artists or festivals any have news they want to share, just send us a message and we will happily pick up on it.
This whole idea also means we now regularly wander around the big wide web looking for news that we can write about. Well, I found something. But this is sooo big, this is so cool, this is soo proving the creativity and resilience of the folk scene, I am not gonna tell about it myself. I’m just gonna copy/paste the message as I found it.
Viral Sessions: Chapter 2 – 141 artists, 5 cats and 1 parrot grand Irish session!

United despite the distance, above borders and differences, Viral Sessions is collaborative folk music and dance project, an inclusive, informal gathering of artists from all over the globe. It is an undertaking unique in its plurality, playfulness and a universal goal – to warm people’s hearts, lift their spirits and cheer them up in the troubling moments of isolation caused by the global pandemic.

It all started as a spontaneous initiative to bring performers together for the St. Patrick’s Day 2020. As the first video went viral, we (Vanessa Medecin, Jan Gałczewski and Jakub “Goldfinch” Szczygieł) received an astonishing response from all over the world. Out of this unbelievable enthusiasm and the apparent global need for a genuine human connection we decided to try something really crazy and to coordinate efforts in creating Viral Sessions: Chapter 2, in which every volunteer could participate. A total number of 141 amazing artists, 5 cats and 1 parrot from 6 of Earth’s continents have answered our call, played and danced their hearts out straight from their homes in this set of traditional Irish reels.
What we did here together is brilliant beyond measure! We can’t thank you enough! You are all legends! Names of the tunes: Earl’s Chair / Sporting Paddy / Silver Spear.’

Well I can only say this is a great piece of music. Especially the grand finale is giving me goosebumps all over my body, just by hearing the sheer power of it. As the organizers say themselves: ‘Music and dance make a difference. We make a difference together, united, despite the distance.“
So true and we at CeltCast can’t wait for Chapter 3!

– Cliff


Eivør announces pre -order for new album to start coming wednesday!!

12 Apr


This is what Eivør announced in her latest Saturday night live stream, after telling us the album is already in its final stages of production in her first live stream on the 28th of march. Eivør She also told that those people who pre-order the new album will also get a free song as a direct download.
The new album, which title isn’t revealed yet, is due to be released in September and will contain songs in both Faeröers AND English, told her viewers on her third hour-long live stream. Besides the new song Eivør mentioned and played again with her husband Tróndur Bogason , who has made a cameo appearance -lovingly announced as her ‘dishwasher’ by Eivør- on every live stream till now, this stream also features her sister Elinborg in a stunning version of Rain. If you want to see this, or the previous streams, just follow the links at the bottom.

If you want more information on the upcoming album, you are invited to subscribe to Eivør’s newsletter on the top of her webpage and all the info will be sent directly to you.

For more of Eivør’s live streams. Here is the first one she did on March the 28th with a stunning version of Trøllabundin:



And here is the live stream of April the 4th, with a lovely acoustic rendition of Leonard Cohen’s classic: Famous Blue Raincoat:

New, Moonlight and mead, the pagan folk podcast

08 Apr


You can say one thing about these weird Corona days, it seems to bring the best of out of the creativity within the pagan folk community. Just days after Castlefest lockdown tv, just two weeks after the huge Ye Banished Privateers album release show we find another cool initiative: The Moonlight and Mead pagan folk podcast.
Set up by Niklas Agalstra of Waldkauz and Koen van Egmond of SeeD its a podcast to celebrate the pagan folk community.

-‘Me and Koen started a podcast about pagan folk together and are planning to release the first episode tonight.” Niklas told CeltCast. “it’s gonna be a weekly thing. We will be talking about music, festivals, being musicians and all that good stuff. The pagan folk scene is a truly good place with great people! That’s why I wanted to start the podcast, to celebrate it!”

Koen says similar words on his page:
-‘Staying inside a lot has sprouted a lot of cool initiatives, webcam videos, online collaborations, new projects. Niklas Agalstra and I are hoping to add that with a weekly returning podcast about all things Pagan Folk! Our first episode has just gone live on Spotify. It’s an intro to give you an idea of what to expect of the coming episodes!
We hope you will enjoy it as much as we enjoy making it. If you have any cool input for upcoming episodes. We’d love to hear from you. We hope we can build a great, loving and musical community with all of you!’

We, the CeltCast team, wish Niklas and Koen all the success in the world with this podcast, and we hope it will carry on, long after these weird Corona lockdown days.

You can find the Mead & Moonlight page here, and the podcast itself on Spotify here.

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.






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