Tag Archives: Cuélebre

Cuélebre – Dijara (2020) review


It was a Sunday morning, the 7th of August 2016, about 10:00 in the morning. It was slightly drizzly and we – my girlfriend, the SeeD crew, me, and a whole bunch of other Castlefest die-hards – were sitting on the hill overlooking the folk stage, listening to the gentle sounds of The Moon and the Nightspirit, while watching the Sunday crowd slowly filling up the grounds again. The perfect way to start a Castlefest morning.
Next up was a Spanish band that I, up to that point, didn’t know. But that was about to change! Fast! Within two songs that band had the whole crowd awake and dancing and me going for my camera. (You can see one of the pictures I took then just below this paragraph)
That band was Cuélebre and their show worked better for waking me up than a liter of strong espresso would ever do! Obviously I bought their CD Oinos straight after the show and it is still being played monthly in the De Booy household. Especially the song Fodder for the Raven I consider a firm pagan folk classic.

What makes Cuélebre and that first album Oinos, published in 2014, so unique is their dark tribal sound; The deep roar of the didge combined with fast energetic drums, the dominant sound of bandleader Yhandros Huergo’s hurdy-gurdy combined with the haunting flute melodies flowing through the music like morning fog over the roughed scorched Spanish mountains. Oinos makes me think of the pictures I’ve seen of Extremadura; the barren black peaks, the vultures circling the sky, a bobcat sliding through the undergrowth. Cuélebre makes the perfect soundtrack for that landscape: dark, tribal, and passionate. The whispered, half-sung, half-spoken vocals of Marta Gálves made it all complete, making Oinos a unique sound in the European pagan folk scene.

In August 2017 Cuélebre released their second album Anaman, with only bandleader Yhandros remaining from the line-up that recorded Oinos. It didn’t change Cuélebre’s sound too much though. The biggest change were the vocals, the then ‘new’ singer Rose Avalon (Rose Avalon, Ritual Duir) has a background in jazz and melodic metal. Her voice made Cuélebre’s music more dynamic, more powerful, but slightly less ‘haunted’. The whole album has a more positive feel over it, without losing that strong tribal connection to the old Iberian tribes and the roughed Spanish landscape.

Now, finally, the long-awaited third CD, Dijara arrived and it is a stunner! Like I mentioned before, there have been some line-up changes in the last couple of years, mainly in the vocal part, and again I was really interested in how it would affect Cuélebre ‘s sound. Well, to answer that straight away: Dijara is the perfect mix of Oinos and Anaman, taking the best elements of both albums. What remained is the strong tribal feel, the fast deep drums, and the haunting shards of flute cutting, weaving its way through the deep didge sound and the everpresent hurdy-gurdy. The vocals on the other hand returned to the more chanting, shamanic style we know of Oinos, something I personally think suites Cuélebre’s music really well. I feel like Cuélebre’s sound is slightly ‘mean’ again, that rough edge is back in the sound. And I personally love it.
Leiko Kei Tratt, Derwa, and Karuo are such strong vibrant dancing tunes, they are bursting with power and energy. Deva and Tanit, on the other hand, are slightly slower songs with that familiar haunting tribal sound, reminiscent of Fodder for the Raven, my favourite song of Cuélebre’s first record.



So is Dijara an Oinos part two? No, not at all. Cuélebre took some huge steps forward since then. First off there are those vocals. They are mostly recorded double and although Judith doesn’t use the exuberant vocal capacity of Rose Avalon, she does put in a lot more melody than Marta did. Not that one is better than the other, they just use different styles and I happen to like them all. A lot of the time Judith’s vocals remind me of Faun, especially on songs like Keinoman, Deva, and Leiko Kei Tratt. And I have to say, it fits the music of Cuélebre perfectly.
Another thing that progressed a lot is the overall sound of the album. While staying true to the original feel of Cuélebre, Yhandros put a lot of effort into the end mix, making the album sound way richer, more dynamic, and far more powerful then Oinos or even Anaman. The best example is the song Macha, starting out as a mid-tempo song reminiscent of Fodder for the Raven, it quickly builds up to a full-on energetic dance tune, with the same powerful build up as Cesair’s Canzo. No mean feat.

Another example is Derwa, a strong pagan folk song, acoustic, but with a drum/didge rhythm that would work perfectly as the basis of a ’90’s Eurodance song. Really? Yes really! And the best thing about it? It works! Victor has a didge style, quite similar to that of Daphyd Sens, which works perfectly in such a ‘modern’ interpretation of a tribal pagan folk beat.
Another example of the strong mixing skills on Dijara is the ‘choir’, kicking in halfway through Leiko Kei Tratt, making this vibrant tribal dance tune sound even more impressive. because of that I consider Leiko Kei Tratt, together with Derwa, one of the strongest tracks on this impressive CD.

Adding everything up I can conclude that Dijara is Cuélebre’s strongest album ’til now. Strong, powerful dynamic, and tribal. If I am looking for comparisons, then the sound of Cuélebre nowadays makes me sometimes think of Omnia, especially their famous rhythm section: Daphyd Sens and Rob van Barschot. Sometimes small segments of the music remind of Waldkauz (just listen to the flute solo leading us into Karuo for instance), in the first songs especially the vocals lead me towards the older material of Faun, and even Brisinga’s impressive vocalists pop up one time as a reference (Listen to the spoken vocals on Macha, they are just as strong as Brisinga’s vocals on Sinä Ja Minä), but these are all references. Add everything up and the sound is 100% recognizably Cuélebre. With Dijara the Spanish band settles themselves firmly at the top of the pagan folk scene. Congratulations Cuélebre, you did all did a hell of a job on this one!

– Cliff



-editor: Sara Weeda
-picture’s:
1 Cliff de Booy taken at Castlefest 2016
2,3 courtesy of Cuélebre


Share the love and pain

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!

The first review of 2020

Ritual Duir CD cover












It’s Wednesday again, but not only that, but it’s also the first of January, So from all of us here at CeltCast: A HAPPY AND MUSICAL NEW YEAR!!!

I can promise you this year is gonna be special, we have many treats and surprises that we are working on at the moment. None of them I can reveil, but all promising to be really good, so keep your eyes on this page and on our webpage 🙂

Now we can start 2020 with a bang. A personal bang anyway. Summer 2018 Alex Sealgaire introduced me to two lovely ladies from Spain who have become very dear to my heart, former Cuélebre singer Rose Avalon and Belenosa Sombra. Together they formed a new pagan folk band called Ritual Duir. I was allowed to follow their musical journey the last 1 1/2 years and fell in love with their music from the first moment I heard it.

So it is with real pride that I may reveal that the first review of 2020 is The Path Of Druids, by Ritual Duir.

Hello music lovers!

After a Castlefest Winter Edition weekend with a lot live music, we have much more music for you!

Today I present you: six albums of the CeltCast Fantasy Award longlist “Best Album 2019” and eight older (or digital) ones. Music from a lot of different countries and with a broad range of styles!

M’ANAM — M’ANAM (2019) — Ireland and Iceland
On Saturday, February 16, 2019, we were asked to make a live stream during the M’ANAM concert in Rotterdam. That was a very special evening and… it was an honor to be there! (You can see these livestreams on our webpage or Facebook page.) The men of ANÚNA , “M’ANAM” have also released this album and it is beautiful! 👨‍👨‍👦‍👦

Nadia Birkenstock – Celtic Harp & Song (2013 and 2019) — Germany
This week we have an older and a new album of Nadia! Of course, the harp is a well-known instrument in the folk scene. Nadia has made another album to dream away with magical harp tunes! 💭

Imbue and Twigs & Twine — The Netherlands
On the 12th of September the CeltCast team went to the Gasthuiskapel (-chapel) in Zaltbommel for the album release party of Imbue (folk, medieval music) and Twigs & Twine (folk pop). Although the bands are certainly not similar, it was a very interesting combination of musical sounds in this beautiful chapel. Both albums are beautiful in their own way! ⛪️

North Sea Gas — Hearth And Homeland (2019) — England
On our way back home after the Fantasy Forest Festival in England Alex and I travelled to Oxford. In a nice pub we met musicians during their Folk Session. After a couple of weeks, we found this amazing album in our mailbox! It’s their 21st album, so… a new collection of Scottish Folk Music! 🎻

EMIAN • PaganFolk Music — Egeria (2019) — Italy
Years ago, we’ve met the members of Emian in person at the lovely festival Celtic Night Geluwe and… they stole our hearts with their music ánd their personalities. I don’t have to say much about this album, because our Cliff de Booy did that already. You can find his review here (November 6th ) (pssst, I LOVE it <3)📜

Bruni — Kynda (2018) — England
The band Bruni released their first album last year. Their own words are: “Across borders, across languages and across the ages”. And, that is wat this album you brings. Keep an eye on this young band! Our own CeltCast Dylan Kerr (and his girlfriend Alana Bennett) are musicians on this album! 💫

Jolin – no physical album yet — Germany
This young lady has just started yet! She has a beautiful voice and we’re curious to what she is going to bring us in the near future. There is no physical album yet, but… we have permission to play a couple of her songs already! You can find Jolin regularly with The Dolmen clan. 😊

Victor Santal — Arpa Celtica (2012) — Spain
Yes, we finally have permission to play this wonderful album on our radio station. Enjoy this magical harp sounds! 🧚‍♀️

Tevenn — Rhuys (2007) — France Years ago, Alex and I were on holiday in Brittany (France), where we bumped into this folk band at our campsite. And, we still like to listen to this album! We hope for new material from this band soon. 🇫🇷

Clannad Irish Band — Past Present (1989) — Ireland
On June 26th, our Cliff de Booy wrote a large review about Clannad, so… if you want to know more about this Irish band, go to: https://celtcast.com/?s=clannad 🇮🇪

Kallidad — Unplugged 2018 (2018) — Australia
At Elfia Arcen we met the Australian band Kallidad (a band with Mexican and flamenco influences). Fantastic energetic music to listen to. When we brought home several albums, we already knew that most of it would not fit in the format of our radio station, but … there is one song on this unplugged album that we can play, yes! 💃🕺

Cuélebre — Anaman (2017) — Spain
This band brings us pagan folk music from Spain. This album Anaman made in 2017 takes you to earlier times, that’s for sure. We are eagerly awaiting new material! 🍃

Very happy that these beautiful CDs have been processed: 📀

M’ANAM — M’ANAM (2019) — Iceland and Ireland
Nadia Birkenstock — Whispering Woods (2019) — Germany
Imbue — Ut solis radium (2019) — The Netherlands
Twigs & Twine — Long Story Short (2019) — The Netherlands
North Sea Gas — Hearth And Homeland (2019) — England
Emian Pagan Folk — Egeria (2019) — Italy
Bruni — Kynda (2018) — England
Jolin — From the Woods (2019) — no physical album yet — Germany
Victor Santal — Arpa Celtica (2012) — Spain
Nadia Birkenstock and Steve Hubback — The Glow Within (2013) — Germany
Tevenn — Rhuys (2007) — France
Clannad — Past Present (1989) — Ireland
Kallidad — Unplugged 2018 (2018) — Australia
Cuelebre — Anaman (2017) — Spain
🎵🎶🎵

https://fantasy-awards.com/

Musical greetings, Ilona CeltCast

Photo of the albums

MPS Dortmund – Day 3 Cuelebre – Part 3









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