BRÌGHDE CHAIMBEUL – BOG AN LOCHAN
"Arresting, hypnotic compositions...with dissonance often stuttering next to moments of deep beauty. Both of its time and out of time." -- The Guardian
"Some of the most satisfying and complete music to be found anywhere in these islands." -- The Quietus
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Bog an Lochan (Boke in LoCH-an) is the first single from the highly acclaimed composer, producer and Scottish small piper Brìghde Chaimbeul's third album "Sunwise" (out June 27th, 2025). The album includes guests on uilleann pipes and organ, as well as Canadian composer Colin Stetson (saxophone) and her father Aonghas Phàdraig (spoken word) and brother Eòsaph (vocals).
Extending the fearless, experimental ethos of her lauded 2023 album "Carry Them With Us,” Brìghde Chaimbeul's new music continues to push the boundaries and expectations of both experimental and traditional sonics.
The melody of Bog an Lochan (“The Bog of the Small Loch”) is from a traditional Scottish reel which is connected to the gaelic folk dance tradition. The track is ecstatic and frenzied, hypnotic and insistent, blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination; truth and storytelling.
Chaimbeul shared this background story and context for the track:
“The Gaelic belief recognises no Fairyland or realm different from the earth’s surface on which men live and move. The dwellings are underground, but it is on the natural face of the earth the Fairies find their sustenance and pasture their cattle, and on which they forage and roam.
The first of winter and the last night of the year is a favourite time for encounters with the fairies, as well as on wild stormy nights of mist and driving rain. They are given to leaving their dwellings underground and taking away whomever of the human race they find helpless or unguarded or unwary.”
(condensed excerpt from “The Gaelic Otherworld” by John Gregorson Campbell)
Brìghde Chaimbeul's previous album “Carry Them With Us" was featured on several year-end lists for 2023, including The Quietus "Best albums of 2023" (#13) and The Guardian's "Best Folk Albums of 2023"(#7). Over the past two years Chaimbeul has appeared at Roskilde, Le Guess Who?, Rewire and other major festivals. The release of Bog an Lochan coincides with her March 2025 appearance at the influential Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee (USA).
