Posts for June, 2024

Another in our season of free outdoor parties, celebrating the space we have by the Spey and the magical community we live in. Music, dancing, food trucks, outside bar.

This time with Hammer and Andrew Thomson. Two record label bosses in their own right, schooled in the electronic music scenes of Glasgow and beyond over the decades. Hammer famously known for his presence on the Feel My Bicep mix series and Andrew’s more recent history has seen him launch Clyde Built Radio, a Glasgow based station showcasing Scotland’s best DJ talent.

Hammer is known for his love of deep rolling arps, old analogue synths and big euphoric
melodies.
Launching 2 labels, Remmah and Italo Hiits over the past few years, he is a hugely popular
festival and club booking at the likes of Love International, Panorama Bar, Glastonbury,
Fabric, Phonox, Houghton and headlined AVA Festival in his hometown of Belfast.
This year, Remmah celebrated its 11th release with a Remmah Rundown compilation
featuring 11 both established and emerging artists, including Optimo’s JG Wilkes, whilst
featuring debut releases from Anna Gram, Kilimanjaro, Stevie Cox and Ysanne. Anna,
Stevie and Kilimanjaro all went on to release huge records on other established labels in
what was a lucrative year for all 3 artists. Following the success of the Remmah compilation
release across the spectrum of the electronic music media – including Mixmag, DJ Mag,
Ransom Note, Electronic Groove and more – the label then released an EP from Rhythm
From Mars and New Delhi’s FILM. Forthcoming on Remmah is an EP from Sonic Juncture,
out 8th December.

What started as a personal label project, has now become a platform to launch new talent
into the industry. Giving space to debut artists from all backgrounds around the world –
including Sublime Sound, Stevie Cox and his release; the hugely successful ‘Sickwave’, a
collaboration with Killimanjaro, after the enormous success of debut EP Muleña EP, a with a
Tornado Wallace remix and Hammer’s biggest self release record so far – the label
continues to go from strength to strength.

Much of his output is road tested on his monthly Rinse FM residency, with shows, mixes and
podcasts for BBC Radio 1, Radio 6 Music, Beats In Space, Insomniac Radio, John
Digweed’s Transitions Radio and Fabric to name a few. Additionally, he has recorded live
streams at the Saatchi Gallery with Feel My Bicep, B2B live stream for Warehouse Project
and Resident Advisor with Sally C, and a Boiler Room show in Vienna.

Hammer will continue creating sell out vinyls on The Hammer Hits white label, like ‘Love
Somebody’ and ‘Strong Enough’. With Hammer, you know there’s always more to come with
a huge new disco edit planned, a track that was tried and tested at Houghton Festival. Plus,
he has created an Italo Hiits label, born out of his fund raising home workouts, giving himself
and his audience a music orientated wellness space that was as high energy as the tracks
he made for it, ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ is a pure slice of Hi NRG nostalgia. With 3 colour vinyl
releases to date, the label is dedicated to his indulgent modern take on Italo Disco.

This year he built his own studio in SWG3, Glasgow, where he continues to make music on
a daily basis and plans to turn it into a space for live sets and radio shows. Hammer’s many
collaborations come from a love of people and creativity. Finishing 2023 strong with
‘Marabou’, a piano led disco track made with Storken and released on vinyl with Running
Back. Hammer’s final release of 2023 was on Permanent Vacation with some big house
sounds on ‘Pearl’. With a vinyl release due out in January on Skylax Records, 2024 is set to
be another big year for the Northern Irish producer, DJ and label head honcho.

Andrew Thomson

Live music with this talented group

Monadh Ruadh Summer Tour 2024 / Monadh Ruadh air Chuairt 2024
Ceòl traidiseanta bho cuid den cheòladairean òga as fheàrr aig Fèis Spè

A free concert showcasing young local traditional musicians aged 14-17 from the Badenoch and Strathspey area under the guidance of renowned fiddle player Charlie McKerron. Organised by Fèis Spè.

Come join us for some splendid music at one of the fabulous venues in the Highlands this week.
THIGIBH ANN AGUS ÈIST RI CEÒL BEÒ TRAIDISEANTA

Rachel Walker & Aaron Jones
Live @ Glenbuchat Hall
Saturday 29th June 7.30pm
Entrance £15 under 16s £10
To reserve tickets in advance
Tel : 01975641303
Email : events@glenbuchatmusic.co.uk

Bringing together one of Scotland’s finest Gaelic singer / songwriters with one of the country’s foremost folksingers and accompanists, Rachel Walker and Aaron Jones celebrate songs from both the traditional and contemporary repertoire with a focus on sensitive arrangements with beautiful vocal harmony.

Two of Scotland’s most highly regarded performers, Rachel Walker and Aaron Jones bring a wealth of skills, knowledge, musicianship and experience to this exciting new duo. After years of writing, touring and performing with many of traditional music’s finest, Rachel and Aaron have joined forces to create one of the scenes most exciting new collaborations. Their combined passion for song and the exploration of the wide repertoire across the tradition, blended with beautiful and heartfelt original songs, ensure an evening of captivating live music and song with two of Scotland’s finest singers & musicians.

Despite The Wind & Rain celebrates inspirational Scottish women. Including songs and stories of artist, campaigner & photographer Maud Sulter, and health pioneer, suffragette & LGBTQ+ icon Flora Murray who both lived in D&G. It was released to great critical acclaim in November 2022 and launched at a headline concert at The MacIntosh Church in Glasgow as part of Celtic Connections in February 2023.

The concert will feature a mixture of Gaelic and English song, including the album in it’s entirety, the back stories of the Scottish women who inspired the tracks, and a selection of traditional and contemporary songs.

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas
Live at Glenbuchat Hall
Saturday 1st June 7.30pm
Entrance £15 under 16s £10
To reserve tickets in advance
01975641303
events@glenbuchatmusic.co.uk

The musical partnership between consummate performer Alasdair Fraser, “the Michael Jordan of Scottish fiddling”, and brilliant Californian cellist Natalie Haas spans the full spectrum between intimate chamber music and ecstatic dance energy. Over the last 20 years of creating a buzz at festivals and concert halls across the world, they have truly set the standard for fiddle and cello in traditional music. They continue to thrill audiences internationally with their virtuosic playing, their near-telepathic understanding and the joyful spontaneity and sheer physical presence of their music.

Fraser has a concert and recording career spanning over 30 years, with a long list of awards, accolades, radio and television credits, and feature performances on top movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, etc.). In 2011, he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame. Haas, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, is one of the most sought after cellists in traditional music today. She has performed and recorded with a who’s who of the fiddle world including Mark O’Connor, Natalie MacMaster, Irish supergroups Solas and Altan, Liz Carroll, Dirk Powell, Brittany Haas, Darol Anger, Jeremy Kittel, Hanneke Cassel, Laura Cortese, and many more.

This seemingly unlikely pairing of fiddle and cello is the fulfillment of a long-standing musical dream for Fraser. His search eventually led him to find a cellist who could help return the cello to its historical role at the rhythmic heart of Scottish dance music, where it stood for hundreds of years before being relegated to the orchestra. The duo’s debut recording, Fire & Grace, won the coveted the Scots Trad Music “Album of the Year” award, the Scottish equivalent of a Grammy. Since its release, the two have gone on to record five more critically acclaimed albums that blend a profound understanding of the Scottish tradition with cutting-edge string explorations. In additional to performing, they both have motivated generations of string players through their teaching at fiddle camps across the globe.

cutting-edge fiddle and cello explorations of Scottish and global music

” … you would think they’d been playing together for centuries. While his fiddle dances, her cello throbs darkly or plucks puckishly. Then [Haas] opens her cello’s throat, joining Fraser in soaring sustains, windswept refrains, and sudden, jazzy explosions. Their sound is as urbane as a Manhattan midnight, and as wild as a Clackmannan winter.”

— Boston Globe

“As many gigs as they must have played together over the past decade or so, there remains a striking spontaneity about Fraser and Haas’s music-making. He has tonal variation and attack to spare, but what makes them so consistently absorbing is the responsiveness each shows to the other. Haas is more than a cellist: she’s the rhythm section who uses the percussive chip’n’chop of her bowing and the double bass-like pulse of her pizzicato playing to great effect. The accompanist’s role moves so fluently between them, building tension all the while, and then they’ll slip into unison and it’s like floodgates opening. ”

— The Herald

“Fraser, one of the most respected of all exponents of the Scots fiddle, would look long and hard to find a more appropriate cellist as a partner…A positive joy.”

— The Scotsman

Come and join us every Friday and Saturday in May for live music and a good craic! Check out out facebook page for any updates to the line up.

BERNARD BUTLER, NORMAN BLAKE AND JAMES GRANT are three of the most renowned and respected musicians in Britain. Bernard; songwriter-producer, Norman; a centrifugal force in TEENAGE FANCLUB and James; songsmith supremo of LOVE AND MONEY. They will play a selection of each other’s songs and will preview the first new material written together from their forthcoming album.

Kris Drever originally comes from Hrossey in the Orkney Islands. Over the years, he has taught himself to be a songwriter, guitarist and singer of note (and sometimes many notes).

As well as creating award-winning original songs and instrumental pieces with the trio Lau, he has had a fruitful solo career exploring the cracks between classic and modern songwriting and the traditional music that he comes from.

We are so excited to be welcoming Harry Bird back to the tipi! Drawing on British folk, Americana and other world music genres, his live performances are an intimate cabaret of finely crafted songs, freewheeling anecdotes and good humour. Original, entertaining and thought provoking, his feel-good shows are not to be missed.

Harry Bird is an internationally acclaimed songwriter and has spent the last 15 years touring hundreds of venues all over Europe and beyond with his guitar, multilingual vocals and a passion for connecting with audiences of all kinds. Now based in Glasgow, after many years in the Basque region, his touring band is made up of bluegrass maestros Rain of Animals and Dundee favourite Sinderins’ Gavin McGinty.

Doors open at 7pm with music starting around 7.30pm and the bar will be open serving a selection of drinks and snacks. This is a standing gig, but please do let us know if you require a chair.

Join award-winning musician, music tutor and experienced performer, Hamish Napier, in these local folk music workshops that:

– are open to melody and chord players alike,
– are open to people age 16+ who play a folk instrument at intermediate to advanced level,
– are suitable for both by-ear players and those who can read a little music,
– will build confidence, theoretical ideas and techniques, in a relaxed, fun and supportive environment,
– will show you how to interpret Scottish folk tunes and accompany using chord sequences
– will focus on local traditional tunes with links to the Badenoch & Strathspey landscape and heritage
– will give participants the opportunity to arrange some tunes together as a group, to perform at the monthly Storylands Sessions Late Show community concerts