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IMAR - From Scotland/Ireland/Isle of Man
There are many reasons to be excited about new Glasgow-based five- piece Ímar – not least a line-up featuring current and former members of Mànran, RURA, Talisk, Barrule and Cara whose collectively crammed trophy-cabinet includes the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Musician of the Year, 2016 Radio Scotland Musician of the Year, BBC Radio 2 Horizon Award, BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and several All-Britain & All-Ireland titles. By far the best and biggest reason, however, is how excited the band are themselves. “As soon as we all sat down to play together properly, it just worked,” says bodhrán player Adam Brown (RURA), originally from Suffolk. “We were a bit stunned, to be honest; all looking round at everyone else,
thinking, ‘Is it just me, or was that really good?’” “It’s definitely more of a pure-drop trad sound than most of the other bands we’re involved in,” adds Cork-born uilleann piper, flautist and whistle player Ryan Murphy (Mànran), “but I think that’s partly why it feels so natural. We’re going back to the music we started out playing – which is ultimately the reason why we’re all here as musicians.” Ímar’s formation also embodies a more personal reconnection with its members’ formative years, dating back long before their recent camaraderie around Glasgow’s justly celebrated session scene. All five of them – also including fiddler Tomás Callister and bouzouki ace Adam Rhodes (Barrule), both from the Isle of Man, plus Glasgow native Mohsen Amini (Talisk) on concertina – originally met as teenagers through Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the Irish traditional music network that tutors budding players throughout the British Isles and beyond, and stages the annual schedule of Fleadh competitions.
“We all have a really strong shared background in Irish music – even though we all live in Glasgow, and only Ryan’s actually from Ireland,” Brown says. These foundations underpin many of Ímar’s distinctive qualities, in both instrumentation and material, while also highlighting the cyclical evolution of Scotland’s wider folk scene. Go back a couple of decades or so, and Irish repertoire still predominated at many Scottish sessions and gigs, whereas today Ímar’s sound stands out boldly from the crowd. Brown adds. “In a way, sometimes it’s easier to get people’s attention by doing something a bit weird, whereas properly nailing a set of good tunes, really well, is actually pretty hard.” And all the more so when you’re playing at the level that these five virtuosos have reached, as Amini observes: “This is one band where you definitely have to be on your game.”
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/2212810-0
