“Critics pick top album of the year – Eire: Isle of the Saints… John Doan plays a harp-guitar and from its 20 strings liberates truly enchanting Celtic music… Doan transports us to another place and time on every cut.” Patrick in the Spirit,” “Resting Upon Jacob’s Pillow,” …the list goes on, each song a polished emerald.” He brought them back to Billy Oskay’s studio in Oregon where they created intricate orchestrations with pipes, flutes, percussion and synthesizers. Long a devotee of the Emerald Isles, Doan traveled the Irish countryside gathering up inspiration and often composing tunes right on the spot. “Eire: Isle of the Saints is one of the most perfect albums of the year and a pinnacle of creation for harp-guitarist John Doan. In addition to his violin, Oskay lavishes pipes, harps, and synthesizers on Doan’s poignant melodies.” His intricate arrangements are further enhanced by producer Billy Oskay, the founder of Nightnoise. With its hybrid strings, he laces themes that aren’t Irish but sound like they could be. Doan plays many arcane stringed instruments but specializes in the harp guitar. John Doan doesn’t come from Ireland, but his new ablum, ‘Eire: Isle Of The Saints,’ is a nearly perfect evocation of the Celtic spirit. “Critic’s Choice – highly recommended listening. The Lamentation of Turlough Ocarolan 4:07.
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Yeats Country (Where William Lies) 4:51.That has been left to the listener to imagine and be transported by.
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The recording itself seems almost like a movie score but without the images on the screen. I had written various scores and Billy felt that few other bagpipers could read and besides Eric was an excellent improviser (check out the sound sample of Patrick in The Spirit below when Eric enters at :20). He had played all the bagpipe music for the movie “Brave Heart” among other John Horner movie score projects. He called up Eric Rigler in Los Angeles and flew him in for a couple days of sessions. This was no “slam it down and mix it in a few days” project but a three month ordeal that would not be finished until it was finished!īilly knows many of the great Irish musicians after being in the group Nightnoise with Michael Ó Domhnaill, Brian Dunning, among other famed Irish musicians. He was challenging at every turn and his remarkable intuition and insistence on excellence made this recording a masterpiece. Billy is the musician’s musician, a consummate performer, arranger, producer and engineer. Once home in Oregon, I reviewed the music I had recorded in Ireland and set out scoring the best ideas and then sought out the guidance of Billy Oskay of Big Red Studios. The remarkable thing about the music I composed on location is its authenticity and waking dream quality that is hauntingly descriptive and present. I completely discarded all the music I had written previously where I had tried to find inspiration in books and photographs. At each “Thin Place” I sat down and recorded on site en plain air musical sketches that captured the dream like Celtic world that knew no limits of time nor imagination.
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I soon got a phone call telling me that a plane was leaving in a few days in need of an escort and I could route my way to Ireland if I wanted to stay longer.īefore I knew it I was walking down gravel roads and through grassy pastures that Patrick himself had walked.
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I half jokingly asked if he ever was asked to escort students to Europe and couldn’t use the free ticket that came with the job to let me know. At the end of the summer I met a former student whose mother oversaw an organization that placed American High School Students in foreign countries. Stephen Hill – Music From The Hearts of SpaceĮire was a real labor of love that found me writing the music for several months one summer while staying at a friends yurt home perched high on a ridge that overlooked the verdant Willamette Valley below. “Eire: Isle of the Saints stands today as one of the most creative, significant and polished albums of the entire genre of the progressive Celtic scene.” A beautifully written twenty-page booklet accompanies the CD. Doan visits sites known as “Thin Places” where it was believed that the distance from Heaven to earth was thin as well as the difference between the past, present, and future. All the music was composed on location where the history of the Irish people happened. The richly detailed production by Doan and producer Billy Oskay blends traditional pipes, whistles, horns, and fiddles with the ringing tones of the harp guitar, and celebrates of the history and people of the Emerald Isle.
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Eire is Doan’s deeply felt homage to the indomitable Irish spirit.