Celtic fusion
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Celtic fusion | |
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Stylistic origins |
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Celtic fusion is an umbrella term for any modern music which incorporates influences considered "Celtic", or
The oldest musical tradition which fits under the label of Celtic fusion originated in the rural American south in the early colonial period and incorporated
"I started with rock n' roll and... then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country... Then you go back from country into American music... and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually."[1]
Another manifestation of this syncretic tendency emerged in
More recently, there has been a flowering of several distinct genres of Celtic fusion. These can be roughly broken down as follows.
Celtic reggae
The fusion of Celtic music and reggae is a hybrid started by the band Edward II and The Red Hot Polkas, an example of Celtic dub, The Trojans, an example of Celtic ska, and followed on by PaddyRasta, an example of Celtic folk reggae, and recently The Celtic Reggae Revolution who have done it to good effect. Other collaborations include The Chieftains and Ziggy Marley, Sharon Shannon and Bréag.
Celtic rock
The fusion of
Since rock music is so diverse and is influenced by virtually every other genre, the sounds of these groups vary considerably; they include everything from straight-ahead classic rock with traditional instruments to traditional songs played with rock "attitude".
Celtic pop
Celtic pop artists such as The Corrs, Nolwenn Leroy, and Gwennyn incorporate pop music elements into traditional tunes.
Celtic punk
Celtic punk was essentially invented by The Pogues in the early 1980s and immediately gained popularity following the release of their first album in 1985. It is one of the best established of the modern Celtic fusion genres, and generally includes drums, bass, guitar, and fiddle, sometimes with tin whistle, bodhran, or accordion. The sound is typically fast with aggressive lyrics, rock beats, and melodies.
Bands in this genre include
Punks singing in Celtic languages began to emerge in the late 1970s in Wales, where groups such as Ail Symudiad (Second Movement) and Y Trwynau Coch (The Red Noses) began performing in fast-paced idioms reminiscent of the Jam; a rather harder sound was adopted by
Celtic hip hop
The first Celtic-identified
Marxman, an Irish-Jamaican hip hop group, whose explicitly nationalist and Marxist politics gained them notoriety and infamy in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, incorporated traditional instruments into several songs on their first album, but largely abandoned them on their second album for a more electronica- and blues-oriented sound that would later form the basis for the emergence of trip hop.
Starting in 1998
1998 also marked the release of
More recently,
The definition of 'Celtic Hip Hop' is contested. Some people use it to refer to all hip hop by self-identified Celts; Ammunition, an Irish rapper who runs https://web.archive.org/web/20080420184447/http://celtichiphop.net/ is one pillar in this camp, while most critics use it to refer to music that actually incorporates traditional instrumentation and melodies. Rappers who spit primarily over conventional hip hop beats and self-identify with Celtic hip hop include Rob Kelly, Emcee Lynx (as a solo artist), Terrawrizt, MetaBeats, Collie, Scattabrainz, Lineage, Corvid and many more.[4]
Celtic New Age
Celtic New Age artists such as Enya, Clannad, Afro Celt Sound System, Catya Maré, Iona, and Gary Stadler incorporate traditional melodies and lyrics with synths and pads to create a mellow relaxed fusion that has proven highly marketable. Enya, for example, is one of the best-selling musicians in the world.
Celtic jazz
The word first entered the English language as slang and was used to describe anyone who was giving a passionate performance, primarily athletes at first. It was only later that the spelling was standardized as jazz and it became associated with a specific musical genre.
The music we call jazz today originated in African American communities and evolved out of American roots music and the
O'Reilly's musical partner has a side project called Temro[5][6] that improvises over Irish traditional music in sophisticated harmonic and rhythmic environments.
Ensemble Ériu is an Irish band which blend the minimalism and improvisatory spirit of jazz around Irish traditional melodies.[7]
Celtic electronica
The genre of Celtic electronica blends traditional Celtic influences with modern electronic music. Artists such as
Celtic metal
During the 1990s, a subgenre of folk metal emerged that combined heavy metal music with Celtic music. The pioneers of the genre were Skyclad, Cruachan, Primordial and Waylander.
Celtic-influenced world music
Many Celtic fusion artists integrate musical traditions from all over the world into their sound. The clearest example of this is Afro Celt Sound System, the members of which bring to the band strong backgrounds in either African or Irish musical tradition. The Irish fusion group Skelpin incorporates Spanish flamenco, Middle Eastern, and American soul elements and instruments into its music. Delhi 2 Dublin [1], a band based in Canada, is known for fusing Irish and Indian music. Salsa Celtica is an 11-member "world fusion" project based in Edinburgh, Scotland that mixes salsa with Scottish bagpiping and world influences.[8] Other artists such as Loreena McKennitt, Red Cardell, the American Rogues, and Catya Maré take inspiration from numerous diverse traditions around the world, although their focus may be on Celtic music.
Others
Other established hybrids include bands like, again, Celtic Reggae Revolution, PaddyRasta, Pubside Down, and (again) Sinéad O'Connor.
As might be expected from musicians playing a style of music defined by its fusion of disparate elements, many bands combine multiple styles. Shooglenifty, for instance, incorporates reggae, rock, and jazz into their musical style; Croft no Five did the same with rock and funk. Bands like Na’Bodach are stylistically disparate between works on the same album, where a rock influenced song may be followed by funk or bluegrass thereafter. Rare Air, an '80s Canadian band, had two bagpipes, with rock guitar and Caribbean-influenced drums.
Books
"Irish Folk, Trad and Blues: A Secret History" by Colin Harper (2005) covers Horslips, The Pogues, Planxty and others. Cunliffe, Barry, ‘The Celts: A Very Short Introduction’ (Oxford, 2003). Maier, Bernhard, ‘The Celts: A history from earliest times to the present’, K. Windle trans, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2003).
See also
References
- ^ irish quotes
- ^ "Official Site: Seanchai & the Unity Squad". Archived from the original on 2009-04-01. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
- ^ Beltaine's Fire Archived 2012-02-12 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Interview". Archived from the original on 2008-04-20. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
- ^ Kurka Boshkin: The Tamlin / The Tempest, retrieved 2015-10-12
- ^ "West Clare". YouTube.
- ^ "Ensemble Ériu". 10 October 2013.
- ^ "Salsa Celtica". Salsa Celtica. Retrieved 2019-10-17.
Sources
- Megaw, J. V. S. and M. R., ‘Ancient Celts and modern ethnicity’, Antiquity 70 (1996), 175-81.
- Dietler, Michael, ‘Celticism, Celtitude, and Celticity: the consumption of the past in the age of globalization’, in Celtes et Gaulois, l'Archeologie face à l'histoire . vol. 1, ed. S. Rieckhoff, Bibracte, 2006, 237-48.