Dervish clock up a tenth album

by Richard West-Soley 91 views

Dervish, Ireland's representative group at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, are set to reach double figures as they release their tenth album on October 26th, including material written by one of Ireland's Eurovision Song Contest moguls, Brendan Graham.

The album, Travelling Show, will be released during the Sligo Live festival, which runs from 26th to 29th October. Continuing in the folk tradition that has won the band acclaim as far as the United States, the new album features new arrangements of rare and unusual traditional songs, such as Lord Levett. For this piece, frontwoman Cathy Jordan penned a new tune, and drafted in harpsichordist Triona Ni Dhomhnaill for an extra edge. Other highlights include a cover of Suzanne Vegas' The Queen and the Soldier, and a new song by winning Eurovision Song Contest writer Brendan Graham (the man behind not only the victorious Rock 'n' Roll Kids of 1994 and The Voice of 1996, but also Ireland's 1976 and 1985 entries).

The Sligo Live festival is a volunteer-driven event which places contemporary and tradition Irish artists side by side. Fans keen on catching Dervish live, along with the likes of Alabama 3 and Duke Special, can find out more about the festival at this link .

Back on the folk scene
Dervish scored a first-time last place for Ireland at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, but its members have since slipped comfortably back into the folk music circuit that has already afforded them a great deal of success. Despite disappointment for Ireland in Helsinki, the band continues to command a great deal of respect on the folk music circuit, exploring new musical territory while remaining true to its Irish folk roots.

You can read more about Travelling Show at this link on the band's official site ; clips are available, but were not working at the time of writing.

Richard West-Soley

Senior Editor

Richard's ESC history began way back in 1992, when he discovered the contest could fuel his passion for music and languages. Since then, it's been there at every corner for him in some way or another. He joined the esctoday.com team back in 2006, and quickly developed a love for writing about the contest. In his other life, he heads the development team at the learning resources company Linguascope, and writes about all aspects of language learning on the site Polyglossic.com.