Fiddle player Danny Diamond, from acclaimed Dublin-based trio Slow Moving Clouds writes for Culture about their eagerly-anticipated new album, Starfall, which is launched on September 22nd in Whelan's, Dublin.
Starfall was recorded early this year in Stephen Shannon’s Experimental Audio studio in Crumlin, Dublin - but its gestation began a couple of years before that in an abandoned army barracks in Longford.
LISTEN: Trin, the first single from Starfall by Slow Moving Clouds
In August 2016, I left my job of the previous decade with the Irish Traditional Music Archive and travelled to Longford with my bandmates, Aki and Kevin Murphy. We were there to make music for a new dance-theatre work, Swan Lake / Loch na hEala, written, directed and choreographed by Michael Keegan-Dolan. Michael is one of Ireland’s leading theatremakers, with a razor-sharp instinct for energy and emotion, and a gift for getting the most from his collaborators.
LISTEN: Slow Moving Clouds in session on RTÉ Arena
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
On arrival in Longford, we set up our instruments and recording gear in a disused office in the barracks admin block. As is the case with most bands, time together had been in short supply in the lead up, as other music projects, day jobs, and life in general kept us apart too often. Now, out of step with normal existence, and immersed in the creative environment fostered by Michael and his tribe of dancers and actors, we poured out new music at a shocking rate.
Aki and I had started working together a few years previously, exploring the common ground between Irish, American and Nordic folk music. Kevin and Aki were working in parallel as an experimental acoustic duo, which evolved from Kevin’s previous project, the acclaimed experimental band Seti the First.
After a time the twin duos evolved into Slow Moving Clouds, combining the music of Aki’s native Finland and the Irish folk tradition, while drawing on Kevin’s experience as an arranger and experimental musician to glue the two together.
We need your consent to load this SoundCloud contentWe use SoundCloud to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
We released an album Os in 2014, which, along with my solo traditional fiddle work, led to our invitation to Longford. There we made a breakthrough, accessing the ability to create new music and songs together, moving beyond arrangements of traditional material into totally new territory.
In the two years since our Longford trip, members of the band have travelled the wold with Swan Lake, which has been an international hit. Alongside this the band have continued to create new material, while also reshaping some of the Swan Lake music for recording.
It’s been an interesting and often challenging time for all three of us. I’ve been through the most tumultuous couple of years of my life in the lead up to and during the recording of Starfall. Highs like playing the Sydney Opera House alongside often-crippling depression, and having to move in with my parents due to the out-of-control cost of living in Dublin.
We’ll be releasing Starfall in association with PEOPLE, an international artist-led collective which organises residencies, festivals, and releases music digitally. I’m sitting in my new home in Sligo, with a view of the Garavogue river, looking forward to what the new record and the future in general brings.
Slow Moving Clouds launch Starfall with a performance at Whelans, Dublin, on Sunday September 23rd - more details here.
