Trá Pháidín / Simon Moreton / Oisín Minogue & Russ Davidson

“Brave new music” said Hamish Henderson on the work of Scottish musician Martyn Bennett. A meeting of tradition & adventurously charged music-making.

Trá Pháidín are a mutable collective of Irish musicians who are geographically, culturally and mentally torn between Conamara Theas, Cathair Chorcaí, Ciarraí, Uíbh Fhailí, Sligeach and Port Láirge, active in one form or another since 2019. The music they make is of an ambitious breadth, embracing traditional Irish absurdity, minimalism, post-rock, free jazz, folk & kosmische influences.

A psychogeographic, groove-based exploration of language, identity & history. Known for sprawling improvisations and open live shows, they blur the lines between structure and spontaneity, weaving woodwinds, fuzzed guitars, spectral vocals, and driving rhythms into waves of sound.

Following breakout album An 424 (a bus route meditation on rural infrastructure, identity, and movement), arrives Cloch ’s Clai, translated Stone & Wall, released through London’s World of Echo record shop which is also home to Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Trio. The songs, the walls of this new work are charged with the concerns scattered across the landscape and psyche of na Gaeltachtaí - tokenism, housing, gentry politics, ribbon built developments and of course, language.

This is new music, alive & roaring with expansive energy. Rooted and knowing in tradition and searching for excited, new ground. A key presence on Ireland’s DIY experimental scene, this really is a rare chance to see them in a top room of a neighbourhood pub before bigger venues & festivals await next year.

“quicksilver and giddy in its exploration of Irish music, language and identity, Trá Pháidín’s second album bursts open the idea of a 21st-century traditional folk record” Jude Rogers, The Guardian 5*

“Moving through celestial abstraction, pulsating kosmische grooves and moments of eerie dissociation, their music transforms Connemara into a hallucinatory parallel version of itself” Patrick Clarke, The Quietus

“An enigmatic but unstoppable force in independent Irish music” Hot Press

FFO: Can, Stereolab, Gong, Tortoise & Irish traditional music.

Poet & artist Simon Moreton opens the evening. Alongside poems and prose, Simon makes drawings and collages. His art is about his own life and getting by in the world, but also about things like memory, the past, and how we’re influenced by the landscapes of the places we live – especially the British countryside. Most things he publishes himself as handmade books and zines, and some things he makes are published by other people.

https://www.simon-moreton.co.uk/

Simon’s words will drift & wander amongst an exploratory musical setting of fiddle & bouzouki from Oisín Minogue & Russ Davidson.

Russ Davidson is an illustrator & musician. A bouzouki player based in Bristol for many years and a past member of traditional Irish group Banish Misfortune. Russ has gigged from Cornwall to Orkney & beyond and is a mainstay of traditional music sessions for over 30 years.

Oisín Minogue is a Bristol-based fiddle player from Tipperary. He has gigged across Europe's festival circuit & is a key presence on the city’s Irish traditional scene.