I’ve just released a new album with pianist Dave Milligan. The second one in two years! Recorded in 2020 at Celtic Connections festival, just before lockdown was a thing and we all became distracted. It took til 2024 for the album to arrive. Both Dave and me are massive Moscow Art Trio fans and one of our favourite albums is their Hamburg Concert. We decided to name the album Glasgow Concert in homage to them.
The thing I like about this album is it features live versions of the tracks that were on our first two albums – The Big Day In and Third Fight Home. Typically when we record a new album the tracks haven’t been performed before and they start to change as soon as we play them live! These are these live versions plus 2 tracks which haven’t featured on any other albums!
The album has 9 tracks and last approx 35 minutes. You can read about the tracks here. (download). You can listen to the album on the link above and here.
This is Anastasia McAroe’s Waltz (written by Simon Thoumire) from our album Portraits performed live at Edinburgh TradFest on 11th May 2024. Find out about the album here https://simonthoumire.ffm.to/portraits
This is Come on, let us sway together (written by Simon Thoumire) from our album Portraits performed live at Edinburgh TradFest on 11th May 2024. Find out about the album here https://simonthoumire.ffm.to/portraits
I’m very happy to tell you that me and Dave Milligan will be playing at Celtic Connections festival on the 2nd February 2024 in the City Halls, Recital Rooms. It would be great to see you and we will be playing a mixture of new and classic material from our new album Portraits and older tunes. You can find out more here
Hi there! Ciamar a tha thu? What’s happening? Sorry for the long break between these podcasts. Sometimes life just gets in the way… Anyway we are back now with the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards Album of the Year Podcast 2023! Starting of with the winner Duncan Chisholm! If you would like to support this podcast please check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/handsupfortrad.
Hi everyone! Myself and Dave are performing at Stirling Tolbooth this Saturday 7th October 7:30pm and we would love to see you! We will be performing music from the new album Portraits and some of our older material. If you would like to come you can find out more here!
Me and Ian David Carr had a great time playing music in Sweden. Here’s a new set featuring Miss Sineag Thomson by Alana NicAonghais, Diddley iPod by Sharon Shannon and Road to Coalburns by Ian Stephenson. Find out more https://simonthoumire.ffm.to/invisible
Hi there, Ciamar a tha sibh? We are back after the summer. My youngest is now back at the school – in his last year! Where does the time go! Anyway loads of great music for you to listen toooo! See you in September!
In 2001, concertina player, Simon Thoumire and pianist, Dave Mil- ligan released their first album to- gether, entitled ‘The Big Day’, a title that reflected the music having been recorded in a single day, due to the sudden availability of a recording studio.
‘Portraits’, however, took considerably longer, despite not having been conceived as an album in the first place. As was the case for many musicians, the pandemic forced the opportunity to create new music un- interrupted by gigs or touring. Such was the case for Simon Thoumire.
And with no real opportunities to collaborate in person, ‘Portraits’ consists of music sent to and fro between himself and Dave Milligan, each track representing a different person in Thoumire’s life.
The results can be heard across the album’s eleven impressive tracks.
Simon Thoumire was once an integral part of John Rae’s Celtic Feet, a band that were stalwarts of those early Islay Jazz festivals. His concer- tina playing is every bit as identifable today as it was over quarter of a century past.
Dave Milligan has appeared at several Islay Festivals and whose own album, ‘Momento’ was reviewed in these pages a few years past.
The collaboration between the two musicians is, to confine it to a single word, ‘seamless’. Thoumire’s more folk-oriented approach is matched, note for note, by Milligan’s jazzier feel. If nothing else, this particular album underlines that the Scottish folk/jazz experiments from John Rae, Colin Steele, Fergus McCreadie and more recently, Fraser Fifield, have a value that highlights them as more than just a passing fad or notion.
The opening track, ‘Come on, let us sway together’ was written as a Valentine’s Day present for Simon’s wife and sways as the very waltz you might hear at a village hall ceilidh.
‘Anastasia McAroe’s Waltz’, howev- er is a smidgeon more emphatic in its 3/4 swing. And, as a nostalgic reminder of Thoumire’s time with Celtic Feet, ‘King Bill’s Hornpipe’, though a con- temporary composition, brings back memories of ‘Beware the Feet’.
While not wishing to descend into clichéd ‘toe-tapping’ references, I dare anyone to listen to the en- tire album, while keeping both feet firmly planted on the floor, partic- ularly during ‘Louis DeCarlo’s 70th Birthday Strathspey’, (where Dave Milligan’s piano-playing provides one of the album’s finest moments), or ‘Misha’, a track dedicated to the Ukrainian pianist, the late Misha Alpern.
