LANDLESS

Landless are a traditional Irish vocal group from Dublin & Belfast who sing unaccompanied traditional songs from Ireland, Scotland, England & America in four-part harmony. A glorious live act to behold, their repertoire features songs of love, death and lamentation, as well as work songs, shape-note hymns and more recently penned folk songs. They have been spellbinding audiences around Ireland, the UK & Europe since 2013 and are set to formally announce their arrival with the release of their deeply impressive debut album Bleaching Bones.have just released their achingly beautiful debut album on Humble Serpent Records.

Recorded by John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum/Katie Kim) of Guerrilla Studios across a series of reverb-heavy historic churches across Ireland (and the occasional underground tunnel), Bleaching Bones is an immaculately performed & deeply moving record. With only the natural room sound as accompaniment, Landless, with the help of producer/engineer/mixer Murphy, have created a timeless folk classic that will appeal equally to fans of early 4AD records as it will to lovers of folk & traditional music. In addition to older works, Bleaching Bones also includes more recent songs by Liam Weldon & Peggy Seeger’s The Ballad Of Springhill

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Bandcamp: https://landless.bandcamp.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/landlessmusic/

QUINIE

Glasgow based musician Quinie, aka Josie Vallely, returns with her second album Buckie Prins due to be released in September 2018.

Following on from a sell-out debut release in 2017, the eponymous Quinie, Vallely returned to Glasgow’s beloved Green Door Studios to record this full-length follow up. The album further explores the versatility of Vallely’s voice, as she sings primarily in Scots, with a style inspired by the traditions of Scottish Traveller singers Lizzie Higgins (1929-1993) and her mother Jeannie Robertson (1908 –1975). Collaging together source material, Vallely amalgamates sean nos style melodies, children’s rhyme, story poems and snippets of more traditional tunes to create a bleak and extended blur of narratives routed in an imagined Scotland. Throughout the tape we are confronted with women’s stories that investigate the tensions that exist between the formidable (mountains / moor / ocean) and domestic (tedium / objects / care).

Building on the largely accapella first release, Buckie Prins sees Vallely accompanied by Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (Circuit des Yeux, Josephine Foster. Woven Skull), Oliver Pit (Golden teacher, Dick 50, Ultimate Thrush) and Neil McDermott (Askolenn, Tartine de Clous, Alasdair Roberts & Friends). They bring a musicality to the tracks that combines minimalist tension, foundations of drone, stabbing atonal noise, and choppy medieval repetition.

The release is accompanied by an essay by Megan Jones, a medievalist based in Glasgow. Her research interests involve the post-medieval legacy and reception of the Middle Ages and the ideological potency of the period in modern discourses. She is currently investigating the malleable forms the Middle Ages take in contemporary culture, with a particular focus on the weaponisation of the period by racist/nationalist groups. The album will be released via GLARC (The Greater Lanarkshire Auricular Research Council) as a limited edition cassette and digital download, accompanied by a small UK Tour (details forthcoming).

First album

https://glarc.bandcamp.com/album/quinie

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Reviews of first album

“Josie Vallely offers a take on a traditional Scots song that draws inspiration from the source singers, while pushing defiantly into left-field. On her debut as Quinie (a variant of “quine,” the Scots for woman, wife, or queen), Vallely lends her keen, flinty voice to a cappella readings of the great ballad “Cruel Mother” and the nonsense rhyme “Sew Sewing Silk.” Harmonium, dulcimer, and DIY beats bring scrape, drone, and rhythm to “The Haar” and “Auld Man Came Courtin’ Me.” - Bandcamp daily

“The album is very faithful to its traveller origins- my only criticism of it, only a minor one- is that its is too faithful as the tracks sound very much like the original field recordings… she has done an impressive job, a really impressive job.” - Celtic Music Radio

“Och...I didny get it....I wanted tae get it but didny” – Truly Scottish TV

“The prohibitive cost of vinyl has led to a renaissance in underground cassette labels and Scotland is full of great ones. GLARC, aka Greater Lanarkshire Research Council, win the award for most original packing, with their felt and ceramic efforts. The music was brilliant too, from Quinie's stark Celtic folk to Still House Plants' dreamy and explosive art-pop.” –The list