Fling

Fling are an exciting Galway based five-piece who have been gigging solidly since their formation earlier this year. Their music, to take liberties with the famous Star Trek saying, is “trad, Jim, but not as we know it’, encompassing influences from Russia to South America, while remaining rooted in Irish trad and American bluegrass music.

The band members are Maeve Kelly (feadóg/ low whistle), Liam Conway (guitar/mandolin), Paulie Smalls (double bass), Alan Walsh (drums) and Liam Carroll (guitar/mandolin/charango).The two Liams and Maeve met while doing a course run by the Access Music Project (AMP) in St Patrick’s Band Hall in the city’s Fairgreen. AMP provides training opportunities for unemployed musicians to gain the skills and knowledge needed to find work in the music industry or to access further education.

It wasn’t long before the Liams began to collaborate on different pieces.

“In February I was going over to Spain to hook up with a musician there and I wanted to bring an example of my own work,” recalls Maeve. “So I called in a couple of the lads for recording and I thought ‘we could work together’.”

The course had a demanding workload but the nascent group still found time to play.

“There’s a little room upstairs in St Pat’s Band Hall and we used to sneak off up there whenever we had a break from classes,” says Liam Carroll. “Maeve had this melody, which came to be known as Atlantic Swell. Myself and the other Liam started jamming on it. Coming from a more rock background, we almost went a bit Metallica on it!

“I think the sound we have now developed from that day in that room,” he continues. “Loads of ideas developed from that; any chance we had we were up in that room, playing away, just seeing what came.”
As well as bringing Fling together, Liam Carroll also feels that doing the AMP course has helped him hone his skills as a musician.

“It’s a life changing course,” he explains. “We didn’t know it when we got into it, but it really is. Personally, I went travelling for ten years with a guitar and mandolin. I let the professional side [of playing music] go a little bit. This gave a structure, an order. We started arranging and organising our ideas.”

While Fling’s high energy folk has its roots in traditional music, its members are determined to add their own particular flavour.

“I’ve noticed something that’s only become apparent to me in the past two years: there seems to be two strains of musicians in the kind of genre that we’re in,” Maeve says. “There’s the people that were born and bred into trad and did the Fleadh Cheoils, did the lot, then moved on into bands. Then there’s more the likes of us lot, who are all self-taught.

“We all got into music around the same age, 15 or 16, and have fallen into this genre almost by default. We’ve all been attracted to traditional music, not just Irish music, but World music in general.” - The Connacht Tribune

Fling's facebook page describes their sound as high energy fusion folk, which would normally be enough to frighten most people away. In reality, on what is only their second gig, they're amazing. Bluegrass, traditional and gypsy sounds inform the melodies with killer harmonies, deadly rhythms and a big ol' double bass slapping away. Steve Earle's 'The Mountain' gets an outing with Maeve Kelly's vocals adding sublimely to the mix. There's a coherence here which belies their brief union. If Our Thursdays or Arthur's Day- just got that!- is about a worldwide celebration, they could do a lot worse than have Fling's traditional sound with a world music twist, light up the big stage." John Donnellan, Hot Press. Vol 34. Issue 15 - Hot Press

The definition of folk music is increasingly hard to pin down in an age of anti-folk and psych-folk and whatever other folk you care to mention. Fling live in simpler times, playing what folk music used to mean: the music of your forefathers. The Irish band are steeped in the tradition of their homeland and, as our panel found out, also know how to knock out a mean tune.

Louis Gilbert: This Irish fusion folk band, play traditional music with traditional acoustic instrumentation with penny whistle leading most of the songs. There are jolly foot stompers that you could imagine soundtrack The Commitments and more plaintive ballads that paint pictures of a more rural Ireland. Their gyspy folk sound could be warmed to by those who enjoy Beirut and want to understand more of the tradition of that music.

Alice Sage: As they create fiddle-and-drum folk, Fling is an apt name for this band. Streets of Vigo jumps about in a fashion encouraging mad flailing dance while slower, softer tracks like Foregone Conclusion are a drunken, melancholy wander home. The music is a gentle concoction of strings, airy winds and big drums, with the instrumentals are pure class. On the occasions where they sing, such as on The Mountain, their voices bring a slow-dance Nashville edge, which is both compelling and emotive – with slow, sing-along harmonies. I highly recommend downloading the two tracks available – hopefully that’ll give them the means to put some more up!

Ian Parker: I have to admit Irish fusion folk is not my specialist subject, so I’m not going to offer up a technical analysis of what Fling are doing here. I can just tell you straight up that it sounds like a good degree of fun. From the pounding Streets of Vigo to the more gentle Foregone Conclusion there’s a wide range of moods, all delivered with the traditional fiddles and whistles of that distinctively Irish sound. It’s not something I’d listen to every day, but it’s impossible to deny this is carried off with aplomb. - For Folks Sake