Celtophilia

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Artist: Poitin
CD: Hot Days

Bonnie writes: Hot Days, by Poitin, is an album from a Celtic band based in the Czech Republic. Poitin, for all of you curious folks out there, is Irish moonshine - and an extremely clever band name. Hot Days is a mixture of trad songs and original instrumentals, with many variations in style and mood, and a few very brave and unorthodox arrangements.

I enjoyed Saxy Jigsies, clearly a saxophone is not the most traditional of instruments in Celtic music, but since I’m a (fairly bad) sax player myself, I’m onboard. When it comes to the didgeridoo, however, please stop the train and let me off. I’m sure that is a matter of personal taste, but for me it sounds an awful lot like a flock of ridiculously huge insects coming to carry me off.

The title track, Hot Days, is an instrumental that clocks in at slightly over seven minutes - and it didn’t really heat up for me until about three minutes in. At that point, however, I got into it and liked it.

A Bucket Full Of Mountain Dew was without a doubt my favorite song on the album. I think Poitin is at their best on the tracks that include vocals, and by the end of this one I was attempting to sing along despite the fact that I didn’t know any of the words. The fiddling, drumming, and vocals were all spot on.

The majority of snags in the c.d. (aside from the didgeridoo) were in the production. There is some crackling particularly at the beginning of Saxy Jigsies and I could never manage to figure out if it was intentional or not. The exquisite flute elements are somewhat marred by prominent breath sounds throughout. I can’t play flute worth a darn, and I have tried, so that is not in any way a reflection on the skills of the musician, who is awesome.

Overall Hot Days is an interesting album that will challenge you to step out of your Celtic music comfort zone. I admire Poitin for their immense musical talent and for having the moxie to do some things that are completely different from what I’ve heard anyone else do. I recommend this c.d. to fans of world music, anyone in the mood for something new, and people that like their bands with an extra helping of that indefinable something we call heart. Poitin doesn’t just play their music, it’s obvious that they mean it.

Mike proclamatifies: Poitin has one of the most interesting stories of any of the CD submissions we’ve received. They are a Celtic group based out of Plzen, Czech Republic. If any of you are beer lovers, yes, I mean THAT Plzen. If you’re wondering, yes, I have the envelope with the address and postmark on my office wall, if anyone wants to come by and gaze at it. It is my favorite piece of Celtophilia memorabilia so far. If you’re not a beer historian, Plzen is the birthplace of a beer style called pilsner, and you’ve probably had one at some point and not even known it. Most of the “American” beer styles are poor imitations of a proper pilsner. Anyway, enough beer history for now. I think Plzen is probably a great place to be a Celtic band, and Poitin delivers some great music on Hot Days.

The CD is heavily instrumental, and it is immediately obvious that these guys are world class musicians. Everything is brought into nice harmony, and even the didgeridoo, which I’m not a fan of, is made to sound just right with the other instruments. I love that there are four instrumentals on Hot Days which stretch over five minutes each, because I could listen to these guys play all day.

This seems somewhat important to at least note, so yes, the singing on Hot Days is in English, not Czech. Lead singer Jeremy King is not Czech-born, as I understand. So, the lyrics are accessible, even to us ignorant Americans. His voice is clean and crisp, and really quite lovely, and the tracks on which it is taken advantage of are some of my favorites.

The title track of the CD, Hot Days, is an immensely long seven-minute instrumental, dominated in the first half by a soothing, entrancingly slow melody played with a flute or whistle, which inspires craggy highlands and mossy greens. Then, about halfway through, it breaks into a set of traditional dance tunes, and somehow it all just works together. I have a hard time explaining it, but it does.

I am not even going to try to pick a favorite song on this CD. I love them all. I have listened to this one over and over since we received it, and I will continue to do so. Sadly, right now you can’t get Hot Days stateside, so my best advice is to jump on a plane and head over to Europe to catch one of their live shows and get it from them! I guess if you’re the less adventurous type, you could always check out their Myspace page @ www.myspace.com/poitinkapela or check out the Soundclick player below!

Now playing: Poitin

EDIT: You actually can pick up the CD here in the States from Celtic Croft at http://www.kilts-n-stuff.com/Musical_Instruments/poitin_cds.html

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Contemporary Celtic Reviews, Traditional Celtic Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.