Search - Grey Larsen & Paddy League :: Green House

Grey Larsen & Paddy League
Green House
Genres: Dance & Electronic, International Music, New Age, Pop

Track Listings (15) - Disc #1
1. Lady on the Island/The Humours of Lisadel/The Monaghan Twig
2. The Thrush in the Straw/The Banks of Lough Gowna
3. The Cuckoo's Nest/Fitzgerald's Hornpipe/The Indian on the Rock
4. The Wind That Shakes the Barley/Dusk Among the Willows
5. Lord Mayo/An Cúsin Bán [The White Cushion]
6. Comb Your Hair and Curl It/The Whinney Hills of Leitrim/A Fig for ...
7. O' Carolan's Draught - Grey Larsen, OCarolan, Turlough
8. Very Kind and Gracious - Grey Larsen, Larsen, Grey
9. The Walls of Liscaroll/Maguire's Kick - Grey Larsen, Traditional
10. Old Tipperary/Garret Barry's/Tom Greyhan's Jig
11. Sweet Iniscara/The Morning Star/Scotch Mary/Music in the Glen
12. Cabbage Night - Grey Larsen, Larsen, Grey
13. Michael J. Kennedy Talks About the Cuckoo's Nest [*]
14. Michael J. Kennedy Plays the Cuckoo's Nest [*]
15. Michael J. Kennedy Talks About Music, Memory, and Playing for ...

CD Details

All Artists: Grey Larsen & Paddy League
Title: Green House
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: The Orchard
Original Release Date: 1/1/2001
Re-Release Date: 6/26/2001
Genres: Dance & Electronic, International Music, New Age, Pop
Styles: World Dance, Celtic, Celtic New Age
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 803680105924

Synopsis

Album Description

?Their playing is both authentic and beautiful, the product of artistic humility and insight. Grey and Paddy have found the perfect balance between maintaining tradition and finding their own unique voice.? - Martin Hayes All Music Guide EXPERT REVIEW: "The respected Irish flutist and concertina player Grey Larsen teams up with guitarist and bodhran player Paddy League on this beautiful and unexpectedly gentle collection of traditional Irish tunes. Usually a program like this, especially when performed by a player of Larsen's skill, would be a showcase for flashy technique, but he and League take a different tack, treating each tune as a jewel to be polished and presented for its own beauty rather than as a chance to show off. The result is an album of unusual loveliness. Highlights include the opening set of reels, on which League's bodhran playing is especially impressive and shows the effects of his tabla studies, and a sweet rendition of Turlough O'Carolan's "O'Carolan's Draught," on which the artist plays concertina in a very straightforward, unadorned style. At the end of the disc are three tracks featuring conversation and a performance of "The Cuckoo's Nest" by the Irish melodeon player Michael J. Kennedy. These last tracks bear no obvious relation to the rest of the album (though Larsen and League do perform "The Cuckoo's Nest" themselves earlier in the program), but are lots of fun nevertheless. Highly recommended". -- Rick Anderson

CD Reviews

A Gem

11/24/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I grew up listening to Grey Larsen's traditional music albums such as Banish Misfortune and First of Autumn. What I found in The Green House is something entirely different and beautiful.Larsen and League have done something very unique here in traditional music. Through brilliant performance and production they have incorporated the intimacy of a solo album with the energy and innovation of a "trad band" and the precise evocation of a string quartet. The tracks are mostly in the traditional format of sets of tunes in like form (e.g. jigs), but they go far beyond letting the tunes speak for themselves. They create an entire abiance of sound in which the tunes live--primarily traditional in instermentation and performance, but entirely purposeful in their intent and virtuosic implementation.Don't expect a session tape here. There is nothing informal about The Green House. At times you will be moved to tap or feet or dance, especially as Paddy League rips loose on the goat skin. But you will also be moved into more contemplative moods by Larsen's masterful interpretation of traditional tunes such as The Wind That Shakes the Barley followed by his own Dusk Among the Willows on track 4.At the end of the CD, after a long gap, there are some old recordings of Larsen and friends interviewing Michael Kennedy, an Irish immigrant and accordion player playing, speaking and singing. These are wonderful in the way they tie the new to the old through Kennedy's recounts of how he learned his tunes as a boy near the turn of the century in Ireland, especially as we realize that the tune Kennedy plays is also played by Larsen on track 3.I highly recommend this album."