Byrne / Summerhayes - Stone Soup [CD]

Adam Summerhayes and Cormac Byrne write of their new release: "This album is the result of an experiment, our goal was to create something from that very sacred space that lies between composition and improvisation. Fascinated by the unique energy generated live where performer and audience are locked in a moment of unplanned creativity, a moment where anything and everything can happen, we vowed to delve into this pool of creativity and unleash it's energy onto record. Our intention was to create an album of bodhran and fiddle music. As the recording session grew ever closer. It became clear that making an album of solely bodhran and fiddle music would somehow not tell the full story. Why impose those limitations anyway? Artistically we had more to offer and could enrich this music with diverse flavors. Inspired by the folk tale of the 'Stone Soup', we began to assemble raw ingredients. I scanned my rehearsal space for the appropriate additional sounds. Seeking to include instruments that I had yet to experiment with in recording. Each track, one by one, found it's feet and fell into form. Often a track flowed from beginning to end in a single take. Other times we'd record a segment, listen back and feel where to go from there. The order in which the album appears is almost identical to that in which it was recorded. The result is strangely coherent: linked improvisations that appear almost as a pre-meditated. It forms an album in the traditional sense: a work that is intended to be listened to as a whole. We truly hope you enjoy this album as much as we enjoyed making it."