Featuring; Sharon Shannon, Brendan Power, Ross Ainslie, Isobel Crowe, Lucy Randall, Dimitris Michiladis & Jon Sanders...
Irish music magazine review
TIM EDEY
The Collective
Gnatbite Records - 12 tracks
www.gnatbiterecords.com
Many adjectives have been used to praise Tim Edeys prowess as a musician and more often than not the word multi precedes them. Certainly, consider multi-instrumentalist and multi-talented when listening to his latest CD offering The Collective and you will immediately realise why. From the very first track Kent to Kintail on which he plays a versatile b/c accordion, guitar, upright bass and piano, you are drawn in to Edeys world of composition, arrangement and expert instrumentals and are disinclined to depart from this until every note and tone has been engaged.
His compositional selection can be strikingly emotive, for example on the track Why? encapsulating the frustration of the cruel illness OCD amid an absorbing Edey arrangement. The Tip of
the Iceberg adjusts pace exhibiting the combination of Edeys accordion, madly fused with the wild rawness of the harmonica, which Brendan Power executes with such ease. Richards Minuet (composed for his dads birthday) is a shining example of Edeys technical brilliance on the guitar as is his other birthday tribute Little Bird which he composed as a present for the renowned box player Sharon Shannon.
The vocals on The Collective are on a par with the instrumentals with Tiny Island, stunningly rendered by the Scottish songstress Isobel Crowe, adeptly accompanied on guitar and piano by Edey and a subtly sweet harmonica from Power which underlines the emotion of the lyrics beautifully. The Winds and Tide Permitting is a familiar song to me as the songwriter, Connemara based Enda McCabe, also showcases it on his recent album Ceol sa Chístín and you can tell from both versions that it has personal, shared memories for the long time friends. Edey comments on his sleeve notes I am a new singer so bear with me yet he certainly does it justice with a sweet mellow timbre that is enriched with Crowes vocal collaboration.
Each track on The Collective is a mini-performance within itself and evokes swift emotive changes in tandem with a technical dexterity that is second to none. Talent oozes from every aspect and nuance of this album from the composition to the musicianship to the vocals and the common thread in all of these is Edey himself. Highly recommended.
Eileen McCabe
