Bua

“Bua evokes the good times that Irish traditional music so often celebrates ,” playing in a manner “largely forgotten in today’s overly polished Irish music world .” With “a precision and intensity that is rarely heard on this side of the Atlantic,” their sound stands out among modern bands in the genre by “keeping the music down the path of tradition” while still being able to “raise the rafters with their playing, charm with their singing, and delight with their contemporary energy.” Based in Chicago, Illinois—a long-celebrated center of Irish traditional music—Bua “has established itself individually and as a group in the eyes and ears of the traditional community,” and their 2011 release, Down the Green Fields, finds Bua exploring the forgotten sounds from the heyday of Irish music in the City of Big Shoulders with a blend of enchantingly stark song arrangements and bold, pulsing dance tunes. Lauded by The Bluegrass Situation as being the top Irish album of the past five years, Down the Green Fields stands as “a testament, from beginning to end, of the lasting essentials of the Irish tradition”.

Len Graham

The hallmark of a decade-old friendship bridging a generation or two, ‘In Two Minds’ and ‘The Road Taken’ are two albums that capture the magic of Irish traditional singing in the “raw bar.” Len Graham is one of Ireland’s best-known singers, having gained an international reputation not only for his inimitable singing style but also for the breadth of his knowledge of Irish folk music. Brian Ó hAirt, an American-born singer, continues to gather repute for his ability to share the collective mind of an older generation of singers, having gained intimate insight into Ireland’s singing traditions in his youth. Both gentlemen’s personal styles, however, come from very disparate regions—Graham’s ballads from northeastern Ulster and Ó hAirt’s lyrical sean-nós from the Irish-speaking regions of the West—yet, through many seasons of collaboration, the two have distilled the best of these traditions into a performance that weaves stories, songs, tunes and dance into “the one tradition.” Unique from many singing albums, most of the songs represented in these albums are sung in unison. It is not a tradition that lends itself to the uninhibited humoring of a song, as mutual trust and attention are needed to integrate two voices into one, especially the distinct vocal timbres of Graham and Ó hAirt, and such is the case with these two singers.