LAS

Now here’s something pretty remarkable, the first album of double C smallpipes to be released anywhere in the world. LAS brings together multi-award-winning Skye piper Brìghde Chaimbeul, acclaimed Scottish traditional musician and composer Ross Ainslie, the founder of the Treacherous Orchestra, and Irish guitarist and drummer Steven Byrnes Haberlin, a sometime member of that acclaimed ensemble.

Recorded live and entirely instrumental, LAS consists of a mixture of original compositions, traditional Scottish songs, and tunes from Bulgaria, Spain and France. Ainslie was inspired to collaborate with Chaimbeul when he heard her performing at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2019, but this project was delayed by two years before the trio could finally get together at Sean Og’s remote studio in Northern Ireland, affording them the luxury of no time restrictions and being able to record up close together rather as if they were all going back to their roots at an informal session. The result is a sparkling, often light-hearted collection built around the unique sound of the smallpipes, ranging dramatically from the powerful scene-setting opener ‘Green Light Set’ to the more fast-paced likes of the self-explanatory ‘Strathspeys and Reels’.