Càirdeas - Clàr ùr le Brian Ó hEadhra agus Fionnag NicChoinnich

Описание: Released on the 24th April 2021, Càirdeas, meaning kinship/friendship in Scottish and Irish Gaelic, is essentially a celebration of friends, languages & cultures spanning Scotland, Ireland and Canada.

We recorded it remotely in various locations in Scotland and Ireland during this past winter and then in March, we had the unusual experience of listening in to the mixing of the album remotely from our living room. Whilst nothing can beat the real thing of the atmosphere of a good studio, we thankfully found this way of doing it relatively stress-free, but then of course we were in excellent hands with Iain Hutchison at the helm in GloWorm Studios in Glasgow. Technology allowed us to overcome the problems of social distancing and it all went fairly smoothly. After the mixing, the album was then sent off to be mastered by the brilliant and multiple grammy-award winning Alan Douches of West West Studios in New York.

Co-produced by our nephew, Innes White, it will be released on our own Anam Communications label. The project was made possible by funding from Creative Scotland, Heritage Lottery Funds and also a successful Kickstarter Campaign.

Each track is accompanied by photography supplied by Mairead NicIllinnean from North Uist and, as with their previous albums, Càirdeas has specially commissioned artwork to reflect each song, this time by Nairn-based artist Rachael Forbes.

For this album, after the year that was 2020, we wanted to reach out to family and friends during these challenging times by recording songs that we grew up with or that mean something special to us. So Càirdeas is an album of mostly traditional material with, hopefully, a strong sense of familial gathering, of a comforting sing-along and of songs that hold something special to many people.

www.brian-fionnag.com