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November 2007
Rogue Albums of the Month:
Nuala Kennedy – The New Shoes

‘warm and brilliant…..articulate and accomplished music’
David Ingram Rogue Magazine – Album of the Month

Nuala Kennedy was born and raised in Ireland, has spent the last decade in Scotland playing music with a variety of groups, and is currently a member of Anam. This began as a solo album, with ace musicians Claire Mann, Julian Sutton and Marc Clement joining her. It has spawned a fine band named after the cd title ‘the New Shoes’.

Nuala offers up tunes and songs and together they make up a fine body of work. The level of musicianship is very high, but the players are clearly there to serve the music, and don’t try to bludgeon listeners with any excess of virtuoso displays. Instead there is a quiet confidence and a high level of class about this new outfit that results in a very listenable album full of energy and inventiveness. Nuala’s warm and brilliant flute is prominent, but there is plenty of fiddle, melodeon, guitar, piano and percussion in there too, and in some intricate interplay too. A lot of the material is traditional, augmented with a few excellent compositions from both Kennedy and Sutton. There are also four songs. Ms K is a very good singer as well, sharing the microphone on one track with Cathal McConnell of the Boys of the Lough.

The New Shoes is a well put together box of and Nuala Kennedy and band-mates are purveyors of some articulate and accomplished music – very enjoyable.

David Ingram Rogue Magazine 2007