01	1. Part a: Soar / Free / part b: News From Nowhere						08:20
	02	2. Whirl - Y - Reel 1 (Beard and Sandals Mix)						07:20
	03	3. Inion / Daughter						04:14
	04	4. Part a: Sure-As-not / Part b: Sure as Knot (Jungle Segue)						09:57
	05	5. Nil Cead Againn Dul Abhaile / We Cannot Go Home						07:18
	06	6. Dark Moon, High Tide (including Farewell to Eireann)						04:12
	07	7. Whirl-Y-Reel 2 (Folk Police Mix)						05:23
	08	8. House Of The Ancestors						08:00
	09	9. Part a: Eistigh Liomsa Sealad / Listen To Me / Part b: Saor Reprise						10:53

Afro Celt Sound System - Volume 1: Sound Magic
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A fusion of African and Celtic music. You can see from the eclectic mix of instruments that this is a real fusion of Celtic and African music. It ranges from traditional-sounding Chieftains style music to beautifully mesmeric arrangements of Sure As Not. The Celtic Harp reminds me strongly of Alan Stivell when he was at his best and the Talking Drums bring out the African influence. The influences are brought together in a beautifully smooth fusion - excellent.

CDRW61 1996
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Saor/Free, News From Nowhere (Ronan Browne, Jo Bruce) 08:21
Whirl-Y-Reel (Simon Emmerson, James McNally) 07:21
Inion/Daughter (Jo Bruce. Iarla O Lionaird) 04:15
Sure-As-Knot (Simon Emmerson, Martin Russell, Kawding Cissokho, Myrdhin) 09:58
Nil Cead Againn Dul Abhaile/We Cannot Go Home (Ron Aslan, Jules Brookes, Ayub Ogada, Iarla O Lionaird, Kawding Cissokho) 07:20
Dark Moon, High Tide (Davy Spillane, Simon Emmerson, Martin Russell) 04:12
Whirl-Y-Reel 2 (Simon Emmerson, Davy Spillane) 05:27
House Of The Ancestors (Ayub Ogada, Jo Bruce, Iarla O Lionaird) 08:01
Eistigh Liomsa Sealad/Listen To Me, Saor Reprise (Traditional arr. Simon Emmerson, Martin Russell, Caroline Lavelle, Iarla O Lionarird, Myrdhin) 10:53






LA Times - Thursday Oct 21, 1999 (concert review)

AFRO CELT SOUND SYSTEM - MUSIC WITHOUT BORDERS

by Don Heckman

Special to the LA Times

African and Celtic music might seem to be an odd mix, but on Monday at Vynyl the London-based Afro Celt Sound System used the combination to produce a savoury world music feast.

The seven musicians (and one dancer) played a set that moved seamlessly from one tune to another - most of them from the groups' current album, "Release" - triggering enthusiastic shouts and wildly eclectic dancing from a packed crowd at the Hollywood club. And with good reason.

Despite its multiple sources, the music was a dazzling entertainment, its foundation of galvanic dance rhythms overlaid with sounds that shifted easily from vocals (in two languages) to instrumentals.

The rhythms, all mesmerising, constantly morphed from African percussiveness to looping Celtic dances. At one point, there was a duel between drummers playing the Irish bodhran and the African talking drum. Building in intensity, the skirmish was suddenly amplified by the cavernous sound of the Indian dhol, from a player who had moved to a position in the audience.

Similarly dramatic events surfaced frequently throughout the evening. (The band has crafted itself into) a complete entertainment package with constantly mutating light patterns, frequent shifts of personnel and constant interaction among the performers.

The result at Vynyl was stunning, a presentation by a musical ensemble that is actually delivering on the promise of a musical world without boundaries.


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Vol 1: Sound Magic

Folk Roots - August 1999
You can of course, witter on for hours theorising about all this stuff. Fusions, styles, traditions, culture clashes. Can you mix'n'match? Are you left with untidy compromise, hopeless dissemination, lack of direction... or divine inspiration? Ultimately, there are only two questions that need answers here. Is anybody being ripped off - you know, exploited, crushed cultures, that kind of thing? And - mostly - does it sound any bloody good? The answers: no, and yes.

Ethnomusicologists might point to an ancient tribal synergy between the Africans and the Celts and for sure there are parallels between the bodhran and talking drum. But such blends scarcely need cultural justification. Music in all it's forms has historically always been advanced by those who dared, from white rock'n'rollers purloining the blues in the '50's to Malcolm McLaren taking extraordinary liberties with hip-hop and opera in the 80's.

The credit here, if not the rip-roaring success vacations-in-Bali type of commercial success, go to Simon Emmerson, whose production is, frankly, stunning. Cast an instantaneous glance in it's direction and it's a bit of a jungle in there. But Emmerson leads us through with guile, subtlety, and warmth, carefully balancing the desire to head full tilt into those exploding rhythms to gently persuad us to enjoy the surprising delights that lay hidden within it, notably Iarla O'Lionaird's sean-nos singing, and Ronan Browne's piping. Any doubts about the empathy between the two cultures are instantly obliterated by the rythmic tension that spits, growls, and rumbles with glorious intimidation between Ronan Browne's fluent piping on Dark Moon, High Tide.

Another of the album's contributers, Davy Spillane, has previously hinted at such fusions on his own albums, but neither has he nor anyone else has tackled a unification of such apparently disparate sources so wholeheartedly. It's not Celtic music with African rhythms. And it's not African music with a couple of Celtic tunes. It's a genuine meeting between the two, offering elements of the extremes of both sides of the coin, notably in O'Lionaird's singing, the talking drums of Masamba Diop, and the kora of Kauwding Cissokho.

You can be totally seduced by the warmth and vibrancy of the Whirly-Y-Reel set one minute; and transfixed the the barren strength and emotion of House Of the Ancestors the next. It sounds not at all indulgent or academic or even arranged in a conventional sense and my one reservation it that if it achieves the sort of recognition that it surely deserve, than how do it's creators maintain the degree of freshness, spontaneity and total absence of self consciousness that usually afflict most studied combinations of sound and musical experiment?

Still, that's a conundrum for another day. Today, let us sit back and enjoy. Let tomorrow take care of itself

Colin Irwin




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Q - May 1999

The title track immediately sets the tone; Sinead O'Connor trading vocal techniques with the very traditional Iarla O'Lionaird when out of the blue, uillean pipes and then a hurdy-gurdy whoosh in. It's like a hurricane let loose. After that, it's best to sit back and enjoy the ride. Volume 2: Release may lack it's predecessor's element of surprise (how could it not?), yet it retains the spontaneity, the mix of ancient and modern, the black and white, the fluidity, and breathless glee.
What's more, it raises the techno pulse a few notches too. Big Cat is all frantic bubbling, Hypnotica tinkles away like deluxe Robert Miles, Even In My Dreams comes anchored by a deep dub undertow and Riding The Waves could happily wear the legs of Michael Flatley.

Maybe the last is recommendation enough.

Peter Kane




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Top - May 1999

American Music is rooted in rhythms from Africa and the longing at the soul of Irish music. Don't take my word for it. That's the gospel as quoted by Pete Seeger in Philip King's documentary series Bringing it All Back Home.

As with so much in that series, this point is debatable. But what isn't debatable is the sheer rhythmic power, poetry and even primal excitement of the Afro Celt Sound System. Whether, like me, you loved their debut album, the confidently titled Volume 1: Sound Magic or caught them live, you'll already have ben long convinced of their talents. On hearing this group's pumping music, you'd want to be dead to the soul not to respond. So does the second album, Release, soar to the same heights as the first? You bet. And then some.

It almost doesn't matter what the the tracks are. From the eerie title track which opens the album, hauntingly sung by Sinead O'Connor that is as far removed as possible from paper-tissue pop 1999 style. Neither does the music sacrifice the pleasure, spontaneity and sheer joy that is also too often missing these days.

Maybe the throat grabbing emotional power in that track is, even partly rooted in the fact that since they made their debut album, Afro Celt Sound System have lost their keyboard player, Jo Bruce who died suddenly. Or maybe the pulsing, breathing dynamic at the soul of tracks like Riding The Waves and Even In My Dreams stems from the fact that these guys now have at least 100 live gigs under their belt.

But most potent, resonant and moving of all are those tracks directly influenced by Bruce's death. For example, the Irish-reel-meets-thundering-West-African-drum-driven I Think Of, which Iarla has described as a personal testament of faith' following Joe's death.

The song, he says, 'Is about the band having to dig deeper than it ever feared after Jo's death, and finding essential truths after the despair. We had two choices and we realised that we had to go on'.

In that comment Iarla O'Lionaird sums up the life affirming soul of this album. But then that, too, has always been a feature of Afro Celt Sound System's music. It's just that this time round everything is accentuated a thousandfold.

Joe Jackson




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Volume 2: Release

Folk Roots - May 1999
Call me a cliche ridden old git but I can't think of a more perfect, thrilling album to announce the end of a century and herald the dawn of a new one. Perhaps the first totally comfortable knit between ancient tribal folk roots and multi cultural dance-driven techno, this collects the threads of the band's brave, occasionally exhilerating but perhaps flawed debut, and creates a dazzling, inspirational, complete picture. It cuts through traditions, cultures, age and geography, and merits recognition - and from pages reaching wider than ours - as the album to heal some of our funny little prejudices about music.

If you thought you and world music could never get beyond Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Heinz telly ad, try this. If you thought Celtic music was all Riverdance and ambient Enya, prepare to be shocked. Built on an absurdly infectious flurry of Afro percussion, both real and electronic, the thrilling mesh of styles is paradoxically both in your face and refreshingly subtle. I haven't heard anything wielding such base excitement in this ball park since the early days of Moving Hearts - and when Ronan Browne lets rip on the pipes over a ferocious volley of rhythms on Lovers Of Light, it feels like being caught in the middle of an electric thunderstorm.

Perhaps given new sense of purpose by the ecstatic reactions to their live performance, they've formulated a set of dance tunes that stand independently of the seductive environment of the dance floor, programming meshing seamlessly with organic instrumentation in a florid landscape of moods and emotions. Lots of people have had a crack at this sort of amalgam over the last couple of years but as the first one to get it more or less spot on it's a landmark of sorts. Iarla O'Lionaird wafts serenely around in that ethereal way of his while Krakatoa erupts around him and even the softer tracks like Hypnotica and Amber acquire a frenetic quality in this atmospher of purpose and invention. Such is the attention to detail that the intriguing Amber is suddenly purloined by one brief excursion of backing vocals from N'Faly Kouyate. More nuances emerge with each play, yet unlike its predecessor there is real form and cohesion this time round.

Aside from the core structure involving O'Lionaird, keyboard/programmer Martin Russell, kora man Kouyate, the dark prince of Irish music James McNally on assorted instruments and principal mastermind Simon Emmerson, there are some impressive cameos from Ronan Browne and Michael McGoldrick on pipes and flute, Nigel Eaton on hurdy gurdy, and fleeting vocal contributions from Ashley Mahler and the ubiquitous Sinead O'Connor. The relationship between O'Connor, Iarla, and the voracious West African production on the opening cut Release is truly mesmerising, recalling Nenah Cherry's excursion with Youssou N'Dour a few years ago. That was a big hit and with judicious editing Release could do the same thing for the Afro Celts.

It's very Celtic. It's very Afro. And it's very good.

Colin Irwin





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Mojo - September 1997

Cambridge Folk Festival
...From the dramatic opening notes of Iarla O'Lionaird's alluring sean-nos singing, it was obvious that the Afro Celts were to deliver something special. After a largely damp Saturday, both literally and musically, the Afros lit up the festival with exotic exuberance and a determined sense of showmanship scarcely discernable from last year's landmark debut album, Volume One: Sound Magic. Any lingering doubts that their daring alliance of Irish traditions with pulsating African rhythms would prove more worthy than exciting on-stage were instantly obliterated in the first meaningful swirl of pipes with percussion, flure, and kora.

James McNally, playing one-handed whistle through a mouth mic, prowled menacingly in black coat and shades and looked like the Grim Reaper's bastard son as the sounds grew, the rhythms charged, and the whole audience became rapidly intoxicated by it all. The main marquee heaved and the sheeer unpredictability of the musical textures and patterns kept us entranced. The moment bodhran and African drums built into into a frenzied cauldron to suddenly stop and be replaced by Ronan Browne's equally exhilerating uillean pipes was the defining moment of the whole festival. The Afro Celts, perhaps making a statement of sorts about roots music, sent back just two members, Iarla O'Lionaird and James McNally, to perform a delicate, haunting Gaelic ballad as their encore.

They really should have closed the night...

Colin Irwin




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Top - Dec 1996

October 31 1996 London Forum
Oh come all ye druids, witches, folkies, crusties, and discerning lovers of innovative music (NW5 for a different kind of Halloween, hosted by the good folk of Whirly-y-Gig and starring the musical charms of the Afro Celt Sound System. This fusion of Celtic and African folk tunes married with tribal rhythms and keyboard samplings has garnered much critical acclaim since the release of their Sound Magic album, and audience expectation was high.

The Afro-Celts' set proved to be an intoxicating blend of the reflective an the energetic. The opening celtic lament Eistigh Liomsa Sealad showcased the unforced purity of Iarla O'Lionard, whose powerful voice was nothing short of amazing. It was not until the third number Whirly-y-Reel 1 that the show really took off, uilleann pipes and whistles colliding with pulsating drum rhythms, building up to a thrilling frenzy. Star of the show was undoubtedly Massamba Diop on talking drums with his boundless energy and unselfconscious love of playing - a refreshing contrast with today's bored, surly rock star. He and the band shared the stage with African dancers, Druids, and a Wiccan woman, the other celebrators of the pagan festival of Samhain, lending the proceedings a mystical, otherworldly feel.

The Afro Celts are nothing if not adventurous. The two-part dreamy Sure As Not, based on an old Senegalese tune, started as an ambient number and then switched to a fast techno pace. It is a credit to their fine musicianship that they can assimilate diverse styles and create such a credible fusion. A fledgling live outfit, they are already capable of producing an outstanding performance. Although they stuck to album material, they bought a thrilling extra dimension of sheer percussive force, which reached a thunderous peak on Whirly-Y-Reel 2. At the end of the evening, these modest musicians sincerely thanked everyone for coming. The pleasure was all ours.

Ruth Morris



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Observer - 14 July 1996

Most World music fusions consist of draping ethnic over electro beats. Producer Simon Emmerson's entwining of Celtic and Senegalese traditions is in a different class, setting dazzling musicianship against daring productions. It's uillean pipes, African koras and reggae basslines meld into a dramatic soundscape, full of light and shade. Thrilling stuff.


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The Examiner - 28 January 2000

Out of Africa and in search of the Celtic soul
The Afro Celt Sound System's Volume 2: Release album is among this year's five Grammy nominations for the Best World Music Album category.

The Afro Celts are a paradox - they are deeply rooted in some of the oldest musical traditions in the world, yet happily collide with futuristic sounds and beats.

Iarla O Lionaird has a background in sean nos, Myrdhin plays the ancestral Breton harp, both N'Faly Kouyate and Moussa Sissokho are venerated griots as the West African bardic school of master musicians.

James McNally was part of the Pogues and Irish hip-hop group Marxman.

Match these exponents with Simon Emmerson's involvement in experimental dance music with programming and keyboards and engineer and programmer Martin Russell.

Simon and Martin have already won a Grammy for best Independent World Music Performance for their production of the Madagascan band Tarika.

Combine all this and you have the amazing musical meltdown of the Afro Celt Sound System.

Bringing a wealth of musical traditions into a contemporary context, acoustic instruments like the kora, harp, talking drum, djembe, bodhran, whistle, guitar, pipes and Irish and African vocals combine to capture the contrasting joyous energy and bitter sweet sadness inherent to both Irish and West African music.

The Afro Celt Sound System recorded their first album within a week at the Real World Label studios which were founded by Peter Gabriel to promote a range of traditional and modern musicians from all over the world.

Volume 1: Sound Magic fused many sounds from jungle through to trip-hop and ambient trance, swirling beats, Irish mysticism and ornate African instrumentation while always maintaining a traditional feel. It was an explosion of contemporary styles and ancient traditions, coming together to explore the Celtic and African roots of modern music in Britain and Ireland.

Simon Emmerson explains the group's philosophy: "The concept of a sound system is that you do live mixing and run backing tapes and do dubs. We're playing live over the top and just adapting as we go along".

Volume 2: Release is a more complete, cohesive production than. It is the result of a year spent writing collectively following the sudden death from an asthma attack of the group's keyboard player and youngest member, Jo Bruce.

The album opens with the eerie title track, a tribute to Bruce featuring the voices of Iarla O Lionaird and special guest Sinead O'Connor.

O Lionaird's voice has a rare, ethereal quality. RTE viewers will remember the Cuil Aodha sean nos singer from his stint as regular presenter and singer on the traditional music series The Pure Drop.

This limited edition CD includes a free and unique musical game enabling you to create your own Afro Celt re-mix.

The game will run on any power Macintosh or any 160 Mhg or faster Pentium machine with Windows 95 or any updated Windows programme.

"American Music is rooted in rhythms from Africa and the longing at the soul of Irish music", said the great Pete Seeger on Philip King's memorable Bringing It All Back Home TV documentary series.

These words go some way to explaining the success of the Afro Celt Sound System.

This is not Celtic music with and African backbeat.

Nor is it West African music with Celtic seasoning. It is fusion, a sound very much of today, incorporating some of the heart of two older, timeless cultures into a pulsating, primal sound synergy.








:PRESS | : REVIEWS | : FAQ's | : TIMELINE | : ZAMBIA PHOTOS | :DISCOGRAPHY| :PHOTOS

AFRO CELT SOUND SYSTEM - FAQs - Some of these were real questions asked during the webchat, others have been added to answer the queries journalists often have regarding the band ... and so once and for all:



1) How did you all first get together? How long have you been going? (Greg Tolland)

Simon: We were waiting at a bus stop, James can continue the story...

James: I was waiting for one Afro Celt and then typically eight of them came along at the same time. Sorry for being flippant, but this question has been asked from us for longer than we have been alive. Are you online? - We've been going for five years. There are five countries represented in the band, England, Ireland, Senegal, Guinea, Kenya and France, actually six. Each country and each musician has a story that could fill a book. But, when we get our website up our first FAQ will be this question with a time line that goes back to 1992 when Simon went to Senegal to work with Baba Maal. Sorry we can't be more specific.

2) Who came up with the idea for the band?

Although the ACSS was the original idea of producer / musician Simon Emmerson, and Vol.1 was very much the realisation of his vision, what was initially an open project with a flexible membership has evolved into a semi-permanent line up. Obviously, there could be points in the future where particular band members could take time off from the band or leave altogether, but as it stands, the band has a core group membership and we work very much as a collective with all the advantages and disadvantages this entails. There is no band leader or single producer, or writer - there are at least five! We will of course continue to use guest musicians and floating members.

3) Who writes the songs and how do you do it?

There is no formula to our song writing - some start with grooves, others with top lines: vocals, whistle, kora, guitar or harp melodies. The songs each have a unique history which generalisations about the writing process impossible - best to ask questions about specific tracks, ie: who came up with the idea for the Whirl-Y-Reels? how was Big Cat written? etc. Each song reflects a different aspect of the band's creative process and character.

4) I really like how you guys weave Celtic and African beats, and incorporate three different languages, Mandinka, Gaelic and English, in your fantastic single, 'Release'. I read that Sinead O'Connor came up with the English words as a tribute to a former band member who's passed away, but are the words in the other languages mean the same thing, or are they responses to each other? Also, can you shed light on the origins of the song and its recording, and are there any other plans to collaborate with Sinead in the future? (Kai Chai)

James: At present there are no further plans to work with Sinead. We always saw her participation in the song as a gift to us and as quickly as she breezed into our lives she breezed out again. She is a maverick spirit who upon hearing about Joe and his tragic death wanted to help us and collaborate with us.

Simon: Blimey, this is a long question. The language of the Afro Celts is a universal language. Many people see our music as the soundtrack to the Global Village. The question of language is very important because people's cultural identity and sense of respect is stated through their language. This is why we don't panic when there isn't an English lyric. The message of Release is a message that everyone can share whose lost a close friend or relative in tragic circumstances and it's a song about hope in a time of despair.

5) How were you affected by the death of your keyboard player and programmer, Jo Bruce?

Jo will always be with us in spirit, but we have to move on. There is a point where the grieving stops and life goes on. We survived the trauma and would now like to look to the future.

6) What has been the biggest surprise of your career with ACSS to date? (Jody)

James: Working with such amazing inspiring musicians that make me learn something every day.

Simon: Quite simply the success of the band. I've spent the last ten years making and producing records that get a wide degree of critical acclaim but generally don't get the sales and recognition that they deserve. So my initial expectations of the Afro Celts was very modest, it was really the optimism and ambition of James and other members of the band that helped create the present sales and success.

7) Was it difficult getting people in the music industry to embrace such a new concept or did they let the music speak for itself...? (Penny)

James: The music spoke for itself.

Simon: If I had ?5 for every time that someone from a major label comes up to me and says how much they would love the Afro Celts on their label and what a great job they would be doing now selling the band, I would be a rich man. The fact is there is only really one label who were prepared to embrace the eclecticism of the Afro Celts, and that was Realworld. I should also point out that I have been signed to Virgin Records in various bands since 1982 and have nothing but compliments and praise for all the New Media staff, especially Kat who is typing this out for me right now.

8) Do you consider yourself a Dance act or a World Music act and do you like the term World Music?

As a general rule, every band hates the categories and labels that the music business and journalists invent to describe them or their genre - every group has its own character and identity and promotional labels like 'world music', 'global fusion', 'techno', 'ambient', 'trance', 'hardcore' etc. are often reductive, simplistic and paint a grey wash over the more delicate colourings of a group sound. However, we all recognise that these labels have to exist largely to help record companies sell the eccentric and often uncategorizable products to retailers.

There is a paradox here: a lot of people of whinge about the term 'world music' have only been able to do so because of the success of the label in getting the records into the shops and getting the retailers to stock albums they would previously have ignored. Prior to the label 'world music' it was almost impossible to buy anything other than main stream chart music in most high street stores. Our roots are very firmly in the experimental end of the British Dance music scene and get rather confused when we find ourselves racked alongside traditional African and Celtic records. One day we'll make an acoustic African / Celtic record and it'll no doubt get racked in the dance section of record shops.

Afro Celt Sound System have in the past been described as: "New Eclectics" (The Times), "Hard Core Bard Core" (Kerrang), "Raggle Taggle Cybernauts" (Mixmag), "Throbbing Sex Gods" (Zipper), "Modest, intelligent and god-like in their brilliance" (Rolling Stone), "The most important band since Oasis" (NME), "Global Boys Band" (Smash Hits), "The Next Grateful Dead" (High Times), "Mighty Fellows" (West Cork News), "The New Indie Rock World Dance Fusion Crossover" (Melody Maker).

9) Simon, why did you change your name?? What's your real one? (Simone)

James: Why did you change your name, Simone?

Simon: Simon Booth was a joke name thought up in a pub in Camden Town back in the '70s when I was a punk in Scritti Politti. Everybody around at the time had names like Rotten, Strummer, Vicious etc. And I wanted the most boring name you could possibly have. Honestly officer.

10) How should I go about learning how to play instruments such as the bodhran and tablas for example ??! (Michael Gardener)

James: I started playing bodhran when I was 10 and it took me about a year playing along with tons of records to feel I had the handle on it. So don't give up too soon and in terms of tablas I wish Johnny Kalsi was here to tell you how bloody hard they are to master.

Simon: I'd stick to djembe if I were you. At least you can join in with everyone else at festivals