Urram (Karen Matheson album)
| Urram | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Karen Matheson | ||||
| Released | 28 September 2015 (Digital) 16 October 2015 (CD) (worldwide) 30 October 2015 (CD) (France) or 27 November 2015 (CD) (France) | |||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||
| Length | 54:55 | |||
| Label | Vertical Records (VERTCD102) (worldwide) Keltia Musique (France) | |||
| Karen Matheson chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Folk Radio UK | very favourable |
| Herald Scotland | very favourable |
| The Scotsman |   |
| Trad' Mag | |
Urram (Gaelic for "Respect" as it is subtitled on the album front cover) is the fourth solo (studio) album by Karen Matheson, lead singer of the Scottish folk band Capercaillie, released on CD on 16 October 2015.
This Karen Matheson's solo project is a musical love letter to her families' Hebridean roots, with a collection of timeless Gaelic songs that evoke the character and atmosphere of Island life, through work songs, love songs, lullabies, mouth music and evocative poems to the surroundings.
As Folk Radio UK's music critic Neil McFadyen stated in his Karen Matheson interview on 15 October 2015: «Heritage, family, poetry and friendship have all been significant factors during the [new album] creative process which started with an unexpected journey through family history, progressed to a treasury of Hebridean music and culture, and culminated in recordings that saw Karen united with old friends and forging new, exotic musical partnerships.»
As Herald Scotland's music critic Rob Adams stated on 18 October 2015 in his review of the new album : «Karen Matheson's latest solo album [...] is a collection of songs both traditional and from the bardic canon that simultaneously looks inward and outward.»
Regarding the genesis of Urram, Karen Matheson recalled in July 2015: «This album came about after finding old photographs when my parents died. They sent me on a journey of discovery about their early lives, their ancestors, the tales of hardship, emigration and the losses of war, which compelled me to connect musically with what was important to them. The songs themselves are a mixture of those learnt as a child and songs gathered from the amazing archives of digitized recordings by the School of Scottish Studies. It is the first time that I have recorded a solo album of purely Gaelic material and it's been a joy to collaborate with such great musicians from the World music scene.»
In an interview by Neil McFadyen on 15 October 2015 for Folk Radio UK, Karen Matheson explained further: «I had been in the middle of a solo album when my mother got ill. [The album] was the usual mix of English contemporary song and traditional material, but the subsequent emotional journey made me want to explore the more traditional elements and the passing down of a culture and a heritage. The parallel between the Gaelic culture and that of other indigenous cultures was key. [...] The opportunity to work with Seckou Keita and Soumik Datta was very exciting. The ancient sounds of the African harp and the Indian sarod sit so beautifully with the traditional Gaelic melodies.» [...] «Things have gone full circle in that [Capercaillie and I] we started out with purely Gaelic trad material, went on to explore more contemporary song and now I find myself driven to look back again at the things that have made me who I am, the culture my parents left me, and the humbling effect of being able to sing these [old] songs.»
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Wikipedia