COMMON TONGUE 'Want & Longing' Info: With performances based around new melodies put to traditional songs, the trio interprets Irish standards through a 21st-century prism, drawing on aspects of jazz and electronica to help re-contextualize the sean-nós singing which is very much at the core of their music making. Format: Digipak CD / Digital Download Cat. No: NIP 002 To Order: Click here

Artist: Common Tongue
Album: 'Want & Longing'
Release Date: 15th October 2010 (IRE) / 18th October 2010 (UK/ROW)
Format: Digipak CD / Digital Download
Cat. No.: NIP 002
Label: Nippi / Psychonavigation
Barcode: 705105309019
Contact: Keith Downey psychonavigation@gmail.com & Paul Chillage paulchillage@gmail.com

Common Tongue is a unique trio bringing together sean-nós singer Lorcán Mac Mathúna, improvising saxophonist Cathal Roche and Ian Wilson on live electronics. With performances based around new melodies put to traditional songs, the trio interprets Irish standards through a 21st-century prism, drawing on aspects of jazz and electronica to help re-contextualize the sean-nós singing which is very much at the core of their music making.

There is huge cross-over potential here we feel to sell this to a traditional Irish market looking for something different and/or modern. It really is a stunning release.

The Trio are...

Lorcán Mac Mathúna was born in Cork into a family with a passion for traditional music and singing. Much of his singing has been passed to him by his father Séamus and was in turn passed to him by masters of the tradition from places like Cúl Aodha, where he lived at a time when the nation seemed to discover its rich heritage through people like Seán Ó'Riada. The influences on Lorcán’s style have been diverse and all of them deeply personal. Sean-nós is a soulful and emotionally expressive style of music and when it strikes a resonance with the listener it can have a dramatic and revelatory effect. Lorcán's greatest influences have been such moments and each song he has learned started as a singularly striking performance in some personal encounter with the tradition. From this he has developed a style, confident in his empathy with the tradition, which is controlled and exciting and which expresses the feeling of his songs and connects the listener to the songs' creators.

Cathal Roche collaborated as an improvising tenor saxophone soloist with composer Ian Wilson on the partly improvisational works re:play (2007) and Double Trio (2009) and will work on a completely freely improvised work with Ian and the Vanbrugh Quartet, The Book of Ways, in the coming months.
In November 2007 Cathal collaborated with composer Hugh O’Neill, choreographer Rebecca Walter and dancers from Catapult Dance on Did I make you up? in the Project Arts Centre, Dublin. Cathal has composed a number of pieces for solo saxophone such as The Message (2006) and The Host (2007). He has also written for a number of Irish ensembles such as the Kai Big Band (Tigisti, 2006) and the RISE Saxophone Quartet (Rat’s Nest, 2007). He was commissioned by the 2008 Sligo Jazz Project to compose a new work for saxophone sextet featuring Julian Arguelles and the RISE Saxophone Quartet and was a featured soloist at the 2008 Sligo New Music Festival.

Ian Wilson is one of Ireland's most acclaimed and often-performed composers. He was written over 100 works in all genres which have been performed and broadcast on six continents at festivals such as the BBC Proms and Venice Biennale and at venues such as London's Royal Albert Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall and Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw. There are commercial recordings available of forty of his works, which are published by Ricordi London and Universal Edition.

Upcoming tour dates:

23rd September - IMRAM Festival, Ireland Institute, Pearse Street, Dublin;

TBC : TV appearance on The View (Network 2)

22nd October - An Lab, An Daingean, Kerry;

29th October - Belfast Festival at Queen's, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast;

30th October - The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Leitrim (double bill with Yurodny);

31st October - Hugh Lane Gallery, "Sundays at Noon" series.