Music video for 'Ar-Lan-Y-Mor' from Catrin O'Neill's critically acclaimed album Nain's Kitchen on IMMG Sparkling Wine Records. Filmed in Wales and Ireland. Produced and directed by John Perkins.
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REVIEWS:
from Rock 'n' Reel magazine:
Vivacious Welsh singer Catrin O'Neill has a passion for folk music which is refreshingly unaffected.
Fortunately she has talent to match. The result is charming yet powerful. Many good live folk acts don't fully succeed in transferring their strengths to recordings, but this is a strong debut album which does her versatile performances justice. Catrin plays guitar and bodhran. She is well supported here by other acoustic musicians, notably Chris Knowles on Celtic harp and Mike Lease on fiddle. Four of the songs are self-penned, four traditional Welsh and five traditional Irish. Catrin's own compositions have a gypsy romanticism, a cheering sense of the magic of love, music and nature, and a definite compatibility with the traditional material. The Welsh songs (sung in the native language) are perhaps the most beautiful, the two Irish drinking yarns are the most entertaining, while 'I Am Stretched On Your Grave' provides the soulful tragedy without which no true folk album would be complete. 'Nain' is Welsh for grandmother, and indeed the album does convey the feel of friendly folks warming themselves up with drink and music in some rural cottage on a cold winter's night. Catrin does her nain proud. Rychard Carrington.
Review from FATEA Magazine: Any album with a song about drinking hard cider has got something going for it. Catrin O'Neill has put together an album of traditional classics and contemporary gems that I guess she's hoping will add to their number. "Nain's Kitchen" is an album of stoves and crock pots rather than ovens and bowls, songs of the people, not the peers, but delightfully practical with nothing going to waste. O'Neill herself can turn her voice from songs, sang almost angelically in Gaelic to rough drinking songs that seem to put you over the drink drive limit just by listening. Refreshingly direct..
BIOGRAPHY:
Catrin O'Neill grew up by the sea in Southern Snowdonia, surrounded by a wealth of traditional Welsh music and culture. Her Grandmother or Nain, was one of the first to introduce her to the magic of folk songs, often sung in the kitchen beside the warm Aga with a cup of tea in hand.
"I took my guitar and had five years of travel," she says. "I produced children's cabaret shows in the depths of China and was a chorus line dancer in the Bollywood film industry in India, among other things." Now settled in the Vale of Glamorgan, she is fast becoming a rising star of the Welsh folk scene, with her first album 'Nain's Kitchen/Cegin Nain' being released in spring 2010. Since returning, her musical explorations have continued but somewhat closer to home. The influence of her Irish ancestry and love of Breton dance and its music can clearly be heard in her performances. However it is in the Welsh music that her true passion lies.
"Welsh folk music has been overlooked for so long" says Catrin, "Even well known Celtic musicians not really being aware of its existence. Many people think that our folk music consists of Hymns or male voice choirs, so far from the reality. The true folk music of Wales can be compared to the carefree passion of Irish, or the beauty of Breton music, but with it bringing harmonies and a poetic tradition to rival that of anywhere in the world. I think it would be very mean of us not to share it!"
It is her humour and ability to tell a story, transporting the audience to places past and present, that really set her aside from other folk singers, her style recently being referred to as a "Female Rory McLeod." She often plays solo but also as a duo or as part of a four piece incorporating harp, two fiddles, bouzouki, pipes and whistle.
27 авг 2024
