Odyssey

Fourth Moon was formed out of a session at Ireland’s Willie Clancy Festival in 2014 by four musicians from right across Europe. All infatuated with a culture of traditional music not native to their homeland, the group pursued an infectiously innovative approach to the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland up to the release of their first album Ellipsis in 2018.

They are not, of course, the only group of musicians to have found their last couple of years bedevilled and blighted by the pandemic, but their unique make-up, including Austrian Géza Frank (flute and whistles), Italian David Lombardi (fiddle), Jean Damei from France (guitar) and Scottish piano accordionist Andrew Waite, plus new member, Scottish singer and step dancer Ainsley Hamil, has meant that two years of alternating lockdowns and restrictions on travel in their native countries have made it especially problematic for them to follow up the release of that well-received debut. Inspired rather than daunted by their difficulties, the writing and recording of Odyssey became a symbol of unity that joins cultures and breaks down borders, a rallying call for musical migrants. Informed by a dynamic, rarely-reverential attitude to traditional music, it’s a collection that one can imagine really taking off live.