Flat of the land

When it started raining at the recent Flat Lake Festival, it seemed as if it was never going to stop. Only the ‘Butty Barn’ appeared impervious to the downpour. The writers performing there were cosseted in a house made of bales and books.

Elsewhere audiences – and bands – were in for a multitude of surprises. With the rain too heavy to make the dash from marquee to marquee particularly attractive, people found themselves sticking around for acts they hadn’t planned on seeing while performers found themselves having to entertain audiences they weren’t used to. All sorts of unlikely improvisations ensued. Poets rose to the challenge of becoming a dub reggae sound system and musicians spun out off-the-cuff haikus. Very engaging, but for next year I wouldn’t mind some dry weather.
Born in Belfast, raised in Scotland and living in Dublin for many a year now, Robin James Hurt plays guitar like a ’demon gadgie’, as they might say in Edinburgh. He also sings like a wee bird, picks a mean mandolin, and composes and arranges fine music.
In 2006, having spent 13 years as a guitarist for hire, touring and recording worldwide with all manner of Irish and Scots artists and bands, Robin James Hurt finally found his own voice via his long-held passion for folk music. He started gigging regularly and it wasn’t long before his solo performances were drawing considerable interest in Ireland and abroad.
Towards the close of 2008, he launched a highly anticipated first solo album, The Tallyman’s Lament, which showcased some rare folk melodies married to some stunning original musicianship, recorded in Dublin with some of the finest emerging traditional musicians of Ireland. With The Tallyman’s Lament picking up enthusiastic press and radio play – and with concerts in the USA, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany and the UK, as well as in every corner of Ireland – Robin was kept pretty busy through 2009. He has now returned to the studio to record The Market House EP, backed on this occasion by The Band Of Moonlight Love. You’ll find him trading licks with his old musical sparring partner Garrett Wall as he supports the Madrid-based singer’s band Track Dogs on their Irish visit in July kicking off with a show in Dublin’s Crawdaddy on Thursday July 7 before the honorary Madrilenos head west for shows in Mullarkeys of Clifden on Saturday July 9 and Monroes in Galway on Sunday July 10.
With the explosion of sessions-type gigs over the last few years it can be difficult to keep up with what’s going on and what’s worth checking out. Standing out from the crowd is the monthly Bluesmoke Session at Bia Bar on Dublin’s Stephen’s Street. They’ve only been running since April but already they’ve had in performers like Rachel Austin and Pete Courtney, the hardiest buck alive (I ran into him at a freezing cold Hilton Park during the Flat Lake in a T-shirt trying to interest me in some bewilderingly healthy bean concoction which seems to inure him from all harm). It’s on from about three in the afternoon on what would seem to be the second Sunday of every month – and sure seems a good way to chill out of a Sunday afternoon.
On Saturday June 25, three of the best young folk artists in the country team up for a gig in Tully’s Bar, Kinvara, when Fia Rua (as Eoghan Burke has come to be known), Pearse McGloughlin and Ultan Conlon get together. With Ultan and Pearse having had records out a while back and Fia Rua still hot off the – well whatever the download equivalent of press is – my guess is that the focus will be on him. The album, Falling Time, has been extremely well received (gaining a four out of five here in Hot Press Towers) so I’m sure he’ll be happy to take a well-deserved bask in the positivity. Although they all, broadly speaking, fall under the nu-folk banner, there’s quite a range of diversity between the three. Should you want another slice of that particular pie, Fia Rua is also appearing at the White Horse Sessions in Kenny’s Bar in Lahinch on Tuesday July 5.
Having played a few festival gigs here to start themselves off for the summer, the musical equivalent I suppose of lining the stomach before going out for a few pints, Kíla are heading off to Amerikay. It has been almost ten years since they played on the west coast and boogied the good people of Eugene, Ashland, Chico, Davis, Arcata, Portland etc. This time round, they’re playing at the Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon on Friday June 17. They head to Eugene the following day where they are performing at the Faerieworlds Festival, a kind of early solstice celebration. Sunday June 19 sees them head up to Olympia in Washington State where they’ll be finishing off their short overseas excursion at the Capital Theatre. With that out of the way, the band will be turning its attention to the publication of Foinn – Kíla – Tunes, the eagerly awaited book of tunes which covers the entire Kíla back catalogue, even including the impossible to get ’Groovin’, a cassette-only release from 1991. Boasting a beautiful collection of photographs by Marcelo Biglia and poems by Colm Mac Con Iomaire and John Sheehan from the Dubliners, it should have a wee hint of magic about it.