Northern Landscape

Hailing from County Tyrone’s Clogher Valley and formed in 2015, The Blackwater Céilí Band have been carving out a name for themselves and their peculiarly Northern Irish approach to music-making with stylish success. As victors in the prestigious Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in 2018 they are one of only three Ulster bands to be anointed Senior All-Ireland ceilidh champions in the festival’s near 70-year history.

Described as ‘a musical journey across their native cultural landscape,’ their sophomore album, Northern Landscape, follows 2019’s well-received Music in the Valley and to say it offers more of the same from the ten-piece outfit is recommendation enough. The focus again is squarely on music from the northern counties, although the band’s sense of ensemble has grown noticeably more finessed, the evident, easy-going reciprocity between them thrown off with winningly understated vitality. In a set of dancing reels, excitable jigs and tongue-in-cheek slides, it’s the three vocal tracks that particularly catch the ear, Jack Warnock’s brightly rendered ‘Mary and the Soldier’, Niall Hanna’s ‘Sweet Omagh Town’, a loving paean to the county town, with Ciara Fox’s sweet-sour ‘The Hills of South Armagh’ as lilting as it is forlorn.