Description
Label Review.
2019 album. Irish / Norweigan folk trio.
Our Overview.
The debut album from the Snowflake Trio ‘Sun Dogs’ delivers the same variety as in their live concerts, and their first album is in itself a thing of gorgeous, stirring variation.The music of Snowflake Trio - accomplished musicians: Irish flute player, singer & composer Nuala Kennedy, Norwegian accordionist Frode Haltli and fiddle player Vegar Vårdal - encompasses both a fine-boned delicacy and a rugged spontaneity and just as every snowflake is different the trio deliver a sound utterly unique and wonderful.
To best capture its spirit, they recorded a live album, featuring carefully selected pieces of traditional music from Norway and Ireland and interwoven them with freely improvised sections and newly composed melodies. Snowflake Trio was founded in Dundalk, Ireland in 2009 when they came together as part of a larger project organised by Louth Contemporary Music Society. Building on an immediate musical rapport, they have continued to collaborate and develop our repertoire; touring in Norway and Ireland as well as performing at international music festivals such as Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Celtic Colours Festival in Canada and Telemark Festival in Norway. Nuala has said that when they came together the music just ‘clicked’, despite it being the first time the Norwegian musicians had worked with an Irish flute and first time Nuala had worked with a hardanger fiddle. That, now 10 year, connection is very evident on ‘Sun Dogs’.
‘Sun Dogs’ weaves together a rich diversity of cultural references ranging across place, poetry in different languages, traveller song, and lullabies. The song and tune combinations are as varied as the music itself, which takes Irish and Norwegian tunes and brings them together in sets that flawlessly mix those different traditions. Each track sounds at the same time completely natural and completely distinctive. The album was recorded live a small lakeside cottage in Norway and the band describe leaving space for freely improvised sections, which you can hear in the midst of each carefully crafted piece.
Snowflake Trio’s first album has delicate, intricate playing but plenty of grit and earthiness when it fits. The stitching together of many-faceted parts into impressively cohesive whole musical pieces is key to its brilliance. Sun Dogs contains a wealth of diverse, nourishing music and is an all-round thing of beauty.
”The energy fuelling some exceptional recent collaborations between Irish, Scottish and Nordic musicians is at the heart of this beautiful collection from Snowflake Trio...A treasure trove.” - **** The Irish Times
”Snowflake Trio’s first album has delicate, intricate playing but plenty of grit and earthiness when it fits. The stitching together of many-faceted parts into impressively cohesive whole musical pieces is key to its brilliance. Sun Dogs contains a wealth of diverse, nourishing music and is an all-round thing of beauty.” - Folk Radio