Kyle Carey - The Art of Forgetting (2018)

The Art Of Forgetting is a visionary fusion of Celtic and Appalachia—a unique innovation that is at the heart of ‘Gaelic Americana’ singer-songwriter Kyle Carey’s novel sound. In The Art Of Forgetting, Kyle shows us through her compelling songwriting, her varied Trans-Atlantic (and now southern) influences and her expertise in Gaelic song—that the story of American folk music is diverse, rich and ever-evolving.

The album opens with its lush, and sensually introspective title track—a Celtic Appalachian union that incorporates the poetic influences of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Elizabeth Bishop. We then travel back to Ireland by way of Louisiana, with a fresh jazz-inflected approach to the classic ballad ‘Siubhail a Rùin’, whose Irish lyrics Kyle translated herself into Scottish Gaelic.

Inspiration from the American south and light Cajun influences offer a mature departure for this—Kyle’s third full length album. Following the original waltz -‘Come Back To Me’ with its rush-of-waves accordion and Celtic fiddle, we circle back to the British Isles with the ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ inspired original ‘Opal Grey’—which through its use of extended allegory—offers us a startlingly developed and compelling illustration of post-love grief. The sweetness returns none-to-soon in the next track, ‘Tell Me Love’ whose influences of Yeats, Frost and West Virginia poet Louise McNeill celebrate the wonder of love re-discovered.

Produced by Dirk Powell and recorded in Louisiana, The Art Of Forgetting is Kyle’s follow-up to her critically acclaimed sophomore release North Star, which peaked at #11 on the US Folk DJ Charts in the fall of 2014 and landed on numerous national and international ‘best of’ lists by the year’s end. The Art Of Forgetting features some of the finest in American and Celtic folk—Rhiannon Giddens and Liz Simmons on backing vocals, Sam Broussard on Guitar, John McCusker on fiddle, Mike McGoldrick on flute, Kai Welch on trumpet, James MacKintosh on percussion, Ron Janssen on octave mandolin and Gillebrìde MacMillan on male accompanying vocals.

Once a full-time waitress at the folk world’s treasured Caffe Lena, Kyle travelled to Cape Breton Nova Scotia after college on a Fulbright Fellowship to study Celtic music and the Scottish Gaelic language. Following that, she spent a year on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, where she studied Scottish Gaelic intensively with Christine Primrose of the Isle of Lewis, learning the language to the point of fluency, along with the secrets of tone and delivery that distinguish such singers in the tradition. Kyle has been touring both nationally and internationally for the past six years—winning hearts, and re-telling the history of American folk on both sides of the Atlantic.



Tracklist:
01. The Art of Forgetting
02. Siubhail a Rùin
03. Come Back to Me
04. Opal Grey
05. Tell Me Love
06. Sweet Damnation
07. Tillie Sage
08. Sios Dhan an Abhainn
09. For Your Journey
10. Evelyna
11. Puirt à Beul
12. Trouble in the Fields