Turrys

Singer Ruth Keggin is a committed campaigner for the Manx language and her debut album Sheear (reviewed in #108), featuring traditional and contemporary songs from the Isle of Man, was something of a victorious, two-fingered musical salute to UNESCO, who were forced to change their classification of the Manx language from ‘extinct’ following protests from some of the estimated 1,700 Manx speakers. Aon Teanga: Un Çhengey(reviewed in #115), her album collaboration with Scottish Gaelic singer and broadcaster Mary Ann Kennedy and Irish sean-nòs singer Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin celebrated Scots, Irish and Manx Gaelic having once been one tongue. But on Turrys she sings almost exclusively in Manx (with English translations given in the liner notes).

Contemporary compositions from Manx musician and scholar Bob Corteen Carswell, such as lilting opener ‘Irree ny Greiney’ (Sunrise) as well as composer and poet Annie Kissack's ‘Mish as y Keayn’ (Me and the Sea) blend seamlessly with traditional Manx melodies, while ‘Little Red Bird in the Pines’ emphasises to startling effect the parallels between Manx traditional song ‘Ushag Veg Ruy’ (Little Red Bird) and the old American folk song ‘In the Pines’, which Keggin first heard sung by Kurt Cobain for Nirvana's live version.