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The North Connaught region is well known for its traditional music, particularly fiddle and flute, so it follows the most popular duets are with the pairing of these instruments.

We met at the pub by chance one winter's evening and over a few drinks we realised we had very similar musical tastes, particularly the music of previous generations from the locality. This mutual interest led to some exciting music sessions and a number of shows with guitar master, Arty McGlynn. Shortly afterwards we released our first recording Pathway to the Well.

Over the intervening period we've searched out collective memory banks, old vinyl and session tapes which we recorded many years ago or were given to us for tunes and settings popular to the area. Some of this music is included in this our second album Out of the Ashes - a title we got from a saying of the great Johnny Watt Henry who was a night owl who liked to keep musicians late into the night. if they made an attempt to leave he would delay them by delcaring: "What hurry is on ye lads? Hold on and I'll rake up the gríosach here and see if I can't pull another 'quare' tune out of the ashes for ye...to be bringing home with ye."

This is a salute if you like to the great men and women of the past who nurtured the tradition against all the odds...but that's another story!

Matt & John

Matt Molloy (flute) and John Carty (fiddle) with Arty McGlynn (guitar), Noel O' Grady (bouzouki) and Brian McGrath (piano)

Racket Records is an independent family run record label based in the north west of Ireland established in 1997 specialising in Irish traditional music.

1. johncartymusic.net
2. jamescartyfiddle.com
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