Dee Armstrong: “All the wealth of our human experiences is carried in musical traditions.”

We’ve all experienced how desperately demanding life can be, and how day-to-day realities too often get in the way of dreams, adventures, long-lost friendships and passions old and new – or, in Dee Armstrong's case, of making a solo record!

“I've been chipping away at the album for a good while,” the multi-instrumentalist and Kíla fiddler tells me with a grin, en route home after attending the RTÉ Folk Awards. “But I’ve been a single Mum for many years. I have four kids. My partner died in 2006, and so I really didn’t have the time, with the comings and goings, and the craziness of it all, to be thinking about putting out a solo album.”

Talking of craziness, she has, of course, also been a member of Kíla – the seven-strong, pioneering Irish folk, trad and roots outfit – who rewrote the rulebook, in making some of the most exciting and innovative Irish music of the past three decades and more, across fifteen albums. She has also played with the five-piece Freespeakingmonkey and The Armagh Rhymers. That, you might say, is just the start of it!

"I've only one kid left at home now,” Dee adds, "and she’s on the way out, so I’m freer than I've ever been!”

While being a single mother might have been a limitation in some aspects of her music career, Armstrong is quick to set the record straight: in numerous other ways, her children have been of immeasurable assistance. “I work with two of my sons,” she explains. “They're all musicians, my kids, but with two of them, we've been recording and writing bits and pieces together for a few years now.”

JEWISH DANCE TUNE

That ongoing collaboration is a vital part of Dee's new record Deichtine's Daughter. Armstrong’s sons, Diarmuid and Lughaidh, show what they can do musically on a number of tracks. Were they always destined to be musicians?

“The music was always around. My family are musicians – parents and grandparents and stuff. I didn’t ever want to pressure them into doing music, but my kids are very musical anyway. They always had an interest in music."

There’s also the fact that she created a rock school in North Leitrim 16 years ago, when her husband passed on.

“It’s been a wonderful project, and they really benefited from that,” Dee reminisces. “We encourage the kids to write songs, we encourage them to learn songs, and they do gigs. It was fun for all the kids to do that, and to do it together. It’s kind of built up a little musical community where we live.”

The rock school also reinforced Armstrong’s own immersion in art and music.

“I think it's the thing I enjoy the most – seeing young people get up and play music,” she agrees. “Hearing a song they've written, getting that recorded, seeing the joy on their faces, being absolutely thrilled with themselves – because they have had a chance to express themselves. I absolutely love it.”

With her first solo record, Armstrong is venturing into a whole new area, without the other seven members that make up Kíla. How did she find the more singular creative process?

“I have my own vision for the music,” she explains, “and so, with this, I just had complete freedom. In Kíla, you'd be arguing over this going here, and that going there – not bad arguments or anything, but sometimes the music becomes a bit sheltered. It's a little bit lacking in space, because there's so many people in it. Here, I had more freedom to do my own thing, which was great.”

The result is a fascinating mix of styles and influences.

The first tune on Deichtine's Daughter, ‘Freilach’, is a traditional Jewish dance tune – usually reserved for weddings and other celebrations – which over time has entered the Irish musical tradition, with several Irish musicians, including Lúnasa, recording their own versions. Armstrong views it as a symbol of the role of music as a bridge between people.

INSPIRED IN THE KILLI WILLI PUB

“We're living in dreadful times,” Dee says, “where there's Zionism, and the obliteration in Palestine. It's a reminder that music is not part of that.

“There's an incredible Jewish tradition in music,” she adds. “And there’s the Arabic tradition as well. It’s important to see what we have in common. There are these amazing musical traditions – and all the wealth of our human experiences is carried in these traditions.”

Dee was the host for a project celebrating the enormous contribution Irish travellers make to traditional music, titled the Long Grazing Acre.

“Those traditions are especially strong among gypsies and the Irish travelling people,” she adds. “The wealth of our tradition is carried by those people, even though they are the most oppressed. I mean, it’s shocking how travellers are treated in Ireland. And then the incredible traveller musicians are carrying the can for us… So, in a way, that Jewish tune reminds me of all that.”

Other stand-outs on the record include the tracks ‘Django’s’ and ‘Birch Wind’, two Americana-flavoured tunes that were both written on the banjo.

“I started trying to learn the banjo,” Armstrong laughs, “and I got really into it. It was just a 4-string banjo, but I really liked the way the 5-string sounded, so I was trying to play a 4-string like a 5-string – badly! Then one of my sons ended up playing the 5-string himself and I was like, ‘Fucking brilliant!’ So I got him to do a bit."

The fact that these tunes were composed on the banjo gives them a different feel to the rest of the record.

“Sometimes,” Armstrong reflects, "when you take up a new instrument, you try to play – and you find something that you wouldn’t find, playing an instrument you’re more familiar with. There’s a bit of that involved!”

The longest set on the record is titled ‘The Killi Willi Waltz - Ed The Visitor - Tricky Jig’. In the classic trad session-band style, it brings together three tunes. The title of ‘Tricky Jig’ is self-explanatory, in a way that musicians will understand immediately. The first – ‘The Waltz' as Armstrong refers to it – is a different matter entirely. An incredibly mysterious piece, combining cinematic fiddle melodies and intricate arpeggios, its genesis could become the stuff of myth and legend.

“I dreamt that!” Armstrong exclaims enthusiastically. “In the Killi Willi Pub. I woke up of the floor of the bar, and there was a tune in my head. I crawled over to the fiddle and squeezed it out of my head onto the instrument, and that's the tune that you hear!”

Anyone interested in finding this rare form of inspiration should note that the only Killi Willi Pub I can find is in Leipzig. See you there!

• Deichtine's Daughter is out now. Dee Armstrong is on tour around Ireland. Upcoming dates include: 7 March, Dolan’s Kasbah, Limerick; ; 8 March, Coughlan's Bar, Cork ; 9 March - Connolly's of Leap, Cork; 16 March - Cleere’s, Kilkenny; 26 April - Townhall, Cavan.