Contemporary Folkways Evening

In our ongoing pursuit of the finest contemporary folkways practitioners, 90mil invites the renowned Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul as she tours across Europe, along with Danish geo-guitarist Emil Palme.

Brìghde Chaimbeul

Brìghde is widely regarded as a master and pioneer of her instrument, a smaller, tonally softer instrument than the Great Highland Bagpipes, which take up a large space in most peoples image of Scottish music. It's a testament to her concepts and delivery that she has become one of few people playing traditional music to find warm welcome in the experimental music scene, where technique can sometimes be considered subordinate to taste.

That she has a fine firm grasp on both can be attested by her past audiences (Le Guess Who, Supersonic and many more), her collaborators (Colin Stetson, Caroline Polachek) and heard on her new record Sunwise, a series of mesmerising arrangements that forefront the complex overtones and textures of the pipes, with a compositional confidence and patience akin to the all time greats of the sacred genre of Drone.

Emil Palme

Emil Palme has been cutting a maverick line in the world of guitar music for around a decade, initially with his mild-yet-wild jazz duo Yngel and more recently as a solo artist, with a practice that has gone deeper and deeper into a highly refined niche, playing the guitar with picks, plectrums, hammers and bows made of stone.

As a listener or an audience however, the novelty of this approach soon gives way to the stunningly rich sound world that his research with these tools has enabled him to conjure. The dynamics of his pieces, drawn out with a precise delicacy of hand movements, lead the mind into images of stonecarved petroglyphs, or the dawn mists on a sweet solstice morn over Avalon…

Both acts a feast for the ears and intrigue for the eyes. If you're lucky we might already have the mulled cider going.

Your 90mil team xoxo