Photo credits: Rich Gilligan
Following the release of their new album All Tied Together, Ye Vagabonds have just completed a highly successful US tour, playing to sold-out rooms and receiving widespread critical acclaim. The band have since returned home to begin their Irish tour in Belfast, with 6 dates already sold out and additional shows added due to demand.
To mark the start of the tour, Ye Vagabonds share a live performance video of album track ‘Mayfly’, recorded at The Lilliput Press in Dublin. Intimate and atmospheric, the performance captures the band’s renowned harmonies and the quiet emotional power at the heart of the song
‘Mayfly – Live at Lilliput Press’
Written by Brían & Diarmuid Mac Gloinn
Arranged and performed by Ye Vagabonds
Performers:
Brían Mac Gloinn – vocals, guitar
Diarmuid Mac Gloinn – vocals, tenor guitar
Alain McFadden – harmonium, synths, mandolin
Kate Ellis – cello
Caimin Gilmore – double bass
Filmed and edited by Myles O’Reilly
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Ben Rawlins
With thanks to Anthony and Enejda at The Lilliput Press
Recorded live in a house in Galway, with acclaimed producer Philip Weinrobe (Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker) at the helm, All Tied Together is a powerful and cinematic album, featuring deeply evocative original songs infused with memory, tribute, and gratitude.
Throughout, a strong sense of home prevails, both their own hard-won digs, past and present, and an inner refuge for anyone longing for connection beyond time and geography. “All these songs have addresses,” says Ye Vagabonds co-frontman Diarmuid Mac Gloinn. “They’re about specific locations and specific people.”
The brothers cite fiction writers George Saunders and Claire Keegan as particular inspirations on this record.
The brotherly harmonies and multi-instrumental abilities of Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn were joined on All Tied Together by multi-instrumentalists Shahzad Ismaily (Laura Viers, Cass McCombs) who flew over from Brooklyn, Alain Mc Fadden, Caimin Gilmore, Kate Ellis, Sam Amidon, Romain Bly and Louise Gaffney.
While initially achieving renown as purveyors of their ancestors’ music mixed with folk-based originals, the Mac Gloinn brothers – Brían and Diarmuid – have increasingly focused on honing their own material, enlisting trusted co-conspirators to distill voice and vision into potent tunes. They have brought their interpretation of the Irish folk tradition to global audiences, going from Trad sessions to touring with the likes of Hozier and boygenius.
All Tied Together follows the duo’s previous acclaimed 2022 album Nine Waves and standalone single ‘I’m A Rover’, which won them an RTE Radio One Folk Award for Best Traditional Folk Track. Ye Vagabonds were also named Best Folk Group for the second time at the 2021 ceremony, where they hold the record for most awarded artists.
‘All Tied Together’ is the tenth album to be released by River Lea (run by Geoff Travis, Jeannette Lee and Tim Chipping) following records by Lisa O’Neill, Brìghde Chaimbeul, John Francis Flynn, a compilation of Irish music from the archives compiled by Lankum’s Ian Lynch, Sam Amidon, Poor Creature and Ye Vagabond’s previous albums ‘The Hare’s Lament’ and ‘Nine Waves’.
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