Search - Kila :: Lemonade & Buns

The fourth album by the band Kila brings traditional Irish music kicking and screaming into the new millennium with a baroque, theatrical flair. Kila's sound tastefully and energetically combines such traditional instruments as uilleann pipes, tin whistle, fiddle, and bodhrán with Middle Eastern strings, African percussion, and horns to fashion a distinctively Irish approach to world-fusion. Each of the seven musicians--including former Dead Can Dancers Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Lance Hogan--is a talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. The jazzy acoustic guitar and flute on "The Compledgegationist" might remind listeners of previous generations of Celtic folk-rock ensembles (early Jethro Tull, Pentangle), while "Rachel's Reel" sounds a bit like David Grisman's "jazzgrass" hybrid. But the Gaelic rap on "Tine Lasta" and the Afro-Celt tribal drumming on "An Tiománaí" are something else again. It's unlikely that there'll be a more fresh and original release to come out of Ireland in 2000. --Rick Mitchell