Dual - Éamonn Doorley, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Julie Fowlis, and Ross Martin

This album is in the vein of my recent (and not so recent) love of Celtic music, specifically from Ireland.  It is unique in that is contains a mix of both Irish and Scottish musicians and traditions, highlighting the differences and similarities between them.  These four musicians (Éamonn Doorley, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Julie Fowlis, and Ross Martin) have been playing together since 2003, two of them from Danú, another traditional Irish band I really like.  Amhlaoibh grew up on the smallest of the Aran Island, where Irish is the first language (a Gaeltacht), and Fowlis grew up in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, where Scottish Gaelic is the main language.  Both are primarily singers and as a result, the album is comprised of twelve songs, all with vocals sung in one of their native languages.

The album plays on many common threads the two cultures share, entwining characteristics from both traditions within many of the songs.  Track 6 and the beginning of track 7, are based on traditional tunes surrounding the life of a Scottish Irish soldier, centered in the middle of the album, perhaps to symbolize the meeting or overlap of the two cultures.  These traditional tunes, and many other on the album have been recorded by numerous Scottish and Irish groups alike.

As expected, this album features a traditional instrumental lineup - small pipes, flute, tin whistle, fiddle, guitar, bodhrán, keys.  All four musicians are skilled and very proficient on one, and most often multiple instruments. The instrumentals do not simply accompany the vocalists, and in fact both vocalists play instruments in addition to singing, but they are of equal importance and often mirror the vocal melody, follow it exactly, or one of the two and then continue the vocal idea in many only instrumental sections.  The voice is used as an instrument in the purest sense in these traditions. 

This is a video of the four performing the fourth track: