The Inish Turk Beg Sessions

Kila's Lance Hogan has overseen a new musical project, which is set to shatter people's preconceptions about the flute. Olaf Tyaransen gets the inside skinny.
- Hot Press Magazine - 23 March 2011

The Brilliant Irish Flute Coverage Quotes

Irish Examiner
“There is some spine-tingling spirit bottled on this joyous album, which is nothing short of inspirational”

CD1 “its pleasures and contemporary twists are subtle and moving, all the more so on repeated listening”

“Disc 2 is a collection of contemporary pop and rock songs and a couple of old rock numbers, given a thrilling makeover.”

“Alan Doherty’s flute-playing is energetic, playful and inventive throughout. Producer Lance Hogan creates a wonderful, funky context that works a treat, not least through the musicianship of Matt Molloy, Jim Kerr, Moya Brennan, Barry Devlin and 10CC’s Kevin Godley”

“...each piece starts well and gets more creatively engaged as it develops”

“while the project celebrates the flute, the fiddle-playing throughout both discs is terrific”

Spiral Earth
The “charming, half-Irish half-Egyptian Nadim Sadek...has a long, enduring and bottomless adoration of Irish music”

Colin talks about “sinking back into a mood of blissful wonder as Alan Doherty and the rest of the team whip out their instruments to play selected highlights from their album. It’s not just any old album, either”

“Nadim Sadek does nothing by halves”

The music initiative has “the potential to do wonders for Irish music”

Alan Doherty: “I think this album is probably the best thing I’ve ever done”

“Great music...lifts the soul and heals the senses...and great Irish music has a magical elixir all of its own”

Irish Times
“Any project whose mission is to “throw the flute up in the air and examine the pieces after they had crashed to the floor” surely warrants rapt attention”

“The accompanying book is a treasure of witty insights and throwaway observation; a gem in itself”

Hot Press
“The accompanying book, written with authority and plain love of the flute by bestselling author and journalist Dave Kenny also features some stunningly vivid photography by award-winning snapper Dylan Thomas”

“The Brilliant Series…the definitive celebration of Ireland’s traditional instruments by a selection of the country’s top musicians”

“Although there was never a plan to take The Brilliant Irish Series on the road, initial reactions have been so positive that it’s now a distinct possibility”

"Rather than being a worthy but dull account of the flute’s origins and musical genealogy, it’s actually an incredibly funny read"

Evening Herald
"David Kenny's...rich and wonderfully ambitious musical project, one that saw a group of talented players travel to Inish Turk Beg, a small island off the west coast of Ireland, to record the accompanying two-CD set that completes The Brilliant Irish Flute"

"Dubliner Alan Doherty's exceptional skills as a flute player ensure that this beautifully produced package stands out"

"The Brilliant Irish Flute gets things off to a cracking start"

"A witty and excellently written book"

"A triumphant recording session"
- Various Press & Radio

There are times - usually deep into the third glass of Remy while wading through a pile of CDs by some hapless anxiety-ridden singer-songwriter inflicting the grindingly tedious details of their miserable existence on the rest of the world - when I drift into the world of fantasy. And no, I don't mean THAT sort of fantasy...
No, these fantasies involve all the usual stuff... you know, scoring a goal in the Cup Final...the records I'll choose when Kirsty Young rings to invite me on Desert Island Discs...songs for my funeral (I'm particularly obsessed with this one at the mo: current leader is Billy Bragg singing The Internationale just edging out long-time front runners The Cloud Factory sung by June Tabor and Shane MacGowan's Rainy Night in Soho by Mary McPartlan).

Ashamedly for someone with a lifelong disregard for mammon who regards money as a bourgeois irrelevance, these fantasies also sometimes stretch to winning the lottery. Unlikely to happen, to be honest, due to the fact that I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life but fun to conjecture about what's to be done with all those millions anyway. Spend it on training a horse to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup maybe? Plunge the money into my imaginary folk opera in the West End? Buy HSBC Bank just so I can sack the infuriating herbert who keeps phoning me at the crack of dawn to tell me I'm broke? “Listen mate, if you must wake me up at some unearthly hour, tell me something I don't know...”
Nadim Sadek did none of these things. He decided to buy his own island.
Not that Nadim won the lottery. He did something much cleverer. He built up a successful international business. A very successful international business as it happens. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but it was successful enough to finance buying the beautiful, almost deserted island of Inish Turk Beg in Clew Bay, County Mayo off the west of Ireland. And, having bought the island, he put in electricity cables under the water from the mainland, built several houses, a gym and swimming pool and set about establishing it as a top-of-the-range holiday resort with a range of island products... whiskey, art, seafood, beef...

But the real reason super-rich, debonair, charming, half-Irish half-Egyptian Nadim Sadek is my new best mate is that we share something remarkable in common. We both have a long, enduring and bottomless adoration of Irish music fuelled by the same single album...the one called Planxty. It was released in 1973 and is usually referred to as “the black album” by virtue of a dark cover showing Andy Irvine, Christy Moore, Liam O'Flynn and Donal Lunny silhouetted by one thin shaft of spotlight.

When we discover this Nadim and I get along like a house on fire, chit-chatting about the masterful way Planxty segue Raggle Taggle Gypsy into the gorgeous tune Tabhair Dom Do Lamh and how Andy Irvine nails West Coast Of Clare and what an absolute god Liam O'Flynn is on the pipes and how the blind harpist Turlough Carolan must have written the tune Planxty Irwin in honour of one of my ancestors. “I still listen to it,” he tells me over a life-affirming glass of Inish Turk Beg whiskey. “And you know what?” What, Nadim? “I still love it.” Me too, Nadim, me too.
“I'm a trad head,” he confirms. “The day I first came to this island was my 40th birthday... and I had this fantasy of Matt Molloy coming across the water from his pub with his lads, going to the top of the island intoxicating the bay with beautiful music. So then I had the idea of making our our own music on this island that would travel around the world...”
And knock me down with a bodhran, that's exactly what Nadim Sadek has done. Converting one of the houses on the island into a recording studio, he engaged former U2 fixer Suzanne Doyle to assemble a bunch of top-notch musicians who descended on Inish Turk Beg to record the island's first album, titled – with no undue modesty - The Brilliant Irish Flute. Main man is Alan Doherty, best known for his work with the excellent Grada, but whose CV also includes hobbiting around on his flute in Lord Of The Rings and, you fondly imagine, terrorising the universe with his mate Damien Dempsey. A myriad of other musicians, including Lance Hogan (from Kila), Sean Regan (Toss The Feathers, Mike McGoldrick Band) and Steve Belton (The Fountainhead, The Audience) also play key roles, there are vocals from Moya Brennan and other visitors to the sessions include Barry Devlin, once of Horslips.

So here I am on Inish Turk Beg, drinking Nadim's whiskey, playing with the pet pigs (Bubble and Squeak), talking Planxty and sinking back into a mood of blissful wonder as Alan Doherty and the rest of the team whip out their instruments to play selected highlights from their album. It's not just any old album, either. There are two CDs – one called “Then” of largely traditional tunes and the other called “Now”, featuring Celtified arrangements of disparate modern classics, including Booker T's - Spiral Earth 24/3/2011

The Inish Turk Beg Sessions: The Brilliant Irish Flute (Warner Music)
'A Session' is when a group of musicians get together to play traditional tunes (and socialise) in a pub. It may look informal, but it has its rules' And so begins author and journalist David Kenny's colourful account of a rich and wonderfully ambitious musical project; one that saw a group of talented players travel to Inish Turk Beg, a small island off the west coast of Ireland, to record the accompanying two-CD set that completes The Brilliant Irish Flute.
Rock, pop and reggae figure - namely Muse's Uprising and Stevie Wonder's Superstition - and it actually works.
Dubliner Alan Doherty's exceptional skills as a flute player ensure that this beautifully produced package stands out.
Volume One in a new series of CD and book releases celebrating traditional Irish instruments, The Brilliant Irish Flute gets things off to a cracking start. In one hand, we have a witty, and excellently written book, In the CD player, we have THEN - a 14-track collection of newly recorded Trad numbers - and NOW, the aforementioned contemporary tunes. A triumphant recording session.
4 Stars
Chris Wasser
- The Evening Herald 6th February 2011