Lunasa

About the Artist

In October 1997, Ireland's all-star quintet Lúnasa released their first CD Lúnasa, a mix of concert and studio tracks gathered from their prolific year together. It was immediately hailed as one of the finest, freshest recordings of Irish music in years, called "moving, pulsating, and thrilling to the very marrow" by Folk Roots and "a true must-have disc" by the Irish Voice. From the start, Lúnasa met with instant acclaim. Their first album became an immediate best-seller in Ireland, topping Hot Press' folk charts and nominated one of the year's top ten by the Irish Echo in the USA.

Since that auspicious beginning, Lúnasa has become one of the most sought-after bands on the international Irish music scene. The band's inventive arrangements and bass-driven grooves are steering Irish acoustic music into surprising new territory. On their first American visit, word-of-mouth led to sold-out shows and rave reviews. "A standing-room only crowd in New York confirmed Lúnasa's reputation," wrote the Irish Voice." This is the hottest Irish acoustic group on the planet."

Like the younger generation of Nashville musicians such as Bela Fleck or Edgar Meyer, pushing the boundaries of bluegrass into jazz and beyond, Lúnasa are redefining Irish music by going right to the heart of its rhythms. With its distinctive use of the upright acoustic bass -- brought front and center by Hutchinson's remarkable playing -- teamed with Hennessey's percussive guitar, the group seeks out the essential heartbeat of a tune. "There are lots of great melodies in Irish music but often people don't hear the rhythms underneath," says founding member Sean Smyth. "We try to relate the swing or energy out of the music, using new rhythms, letting each instrument add its own unique layer. We'll play the same tune over and over searching for the groove, exploring it. We let the music find its pulse." The result is a sound that, though distinctly Irish in flavor, touches on jazz and other improvisational music forms.

Inspired by Ireland's great 1970s group The Bothy Band, Lúnasa use melodic interweaving of wind and string instruments, pairing flutes, fiddle, whistle and pipes in often breathtaking arrangements. "I had a vision of the type of music I wanted to create," says Sean. "In my books, the most influential band was the Bothy Band, who were flute, pipes and fiddle based." Seeds for Lúnasa were planted when Sean hooked up with Trevor and Donogh for a short tour of Scandinavia in late 1996. The trio clicked so well that back in Ireland, they brought in John McSherry and Michael McGoldrick to record some concerts. A tour of Australia in January 1997 brought Kevin on board, and the band began to take off. "The response when we started playing at home was just great," adds Sean. Within several months, they were filling venues with spellbound audiences in Ireland, and began to expand their tours to other parts of the world. After a particularly memorable concert at Matt Molloy's -- a renowned music pub in the West of Ireland, owned by the former-Bothy Band and current-Chieftains flutist -- Molloy himself gave the new band his blessing, remarking "they remind me of a band I used to play with!"

Named for an ancient Celtic harvest festival in honor of the Irish god Lugh, patron of the arts, Lúnasa is indeed a gathering of some of the top musical talents in Ireland. Its members have helped formed the backbone of some of the greatest Irish groups of the decade - Bassist Trevor Hutchinson was a key member of The Waterboys, and later he, with guitarist Donogh Hennessy, would form the dynamic rhythm section of The Sharon Shannon Band. Fiddler Sean Smyth is an All-Ireland champion who has played with Donal Lunny's Coolfin; Kevin Crawford, considered to be among the finest flutists in Ireland played with the acclaimed traditional group Moving Cloud; and, piper Cillian Vallely (of the same talented musical family as brother Niall Vallely of Nomos). They were rightly called an "Irish music dream team" in the magazine Folk Roots.

In 1999 Lúnasa signed a 3 -album deal with US label, Green Linnet. The deal was the largest Green Linnet have ever offered a new signing. In October of that year 'Otherworld' was released. The album was described as a stunning cycle of instrumentals that captures all the performance intensity for which they're widely acclaimed. This record strengthened Lúnasa's growing global reputation as one of the hottest, most electrifying bands in Irish music today. The album was Green Linnet's fastest selling record in its 25 year history.

They performed at the HOLLYWOOD BOWL to 13,000 people in Summer 2000. June 2001 saw the release of "The Merry Sisters Of Fate", described by Mojo as the 'brilliant third all-instrumental album by the new gods of Irish music'. The band have recently been commissioned to compose the theme music for a major new US feature film. In 2001 Lúnasa toured in US, Australia, Israel, Austria, Scandinavia, France, Ireland, and UK. In summer 2001 they toured as Special Guests of MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER. They also worked with actress HOLLY HUNTER on her theatre project 'By The Bog Of Cats'. In November Lúnasa toured Ireland with LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO.