The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s collaboration with The Haar singer Molly Donnery has resulted in the release of a new album ‘A Little Bit Slanted’.
An album born on the road, out of friendship and late-night laughter, ‘A Little Bit Slanted’ was recorded in just two days on the North Yorkshire Moors with the Irish singer Molly Donnery, who collaborates with the duo in their lauded project The Haar (alongside bodhrán player Cormac Byrne).
A mid-winter break during a tour spontaneously turned into a four hour drive to lay down 9 songs, springing from a casual conversation between the three about touring in this configuration of violin, voice and accordion.
“Shall we do a little tour, then?” remarked Adam. Molly responded “Vibes. I was thinking of doing some songs I haven’t done in a while, from when I was a kid?”. “Cool. Nice” affirmed Murray and the project was then in motion, almost effortlessly.
Their intention to capture some of the joy and magic they had been feeling during their live sets resulted in this collection of traditional songs, performed in entirely new ways.
It proved to be much more than simply looking back
, with Molly finding catharsis singing songs from her childhood in Gaelic and English - now honoured by the spontaneous musical worlds conjured by Adam Summerhayes and Murray Grainger. For Molly these are also the songs through which she developed her craft and then won the All-Ireland Scór na nÓg with - so there’s a real passion at play here.
As Grainger says: “Molly is probably the finest singer I’ve ever worked with. She’s ridiculously good.” Singing in English and Irish Gaelic, she brings a wonderfully contemporary timbre to these traditional songs. “She is such a capable and imaginative singer,” adds Summerhayes. “In the same way as we react to her, she absolutely reacts to us. So if we’ve suddenly taken a song in a different direction, she will absolutely go with it without a pause. I don’t know any other singer who’s quite as flexible.”
