Description
Ye Vagabonds – Nine Waves – Vinyl Record
Ye Vagabonds’ Nine Waves is an album that feels both ancient and immediate, drawing on the deep well of Irish traditional music while sounding unmistakably of the present moment. Released on River Lea (Rough Trade’s folk imprint) in May 2022, it’s a record built on atmosphere, harmony, and the quiet intensity of two voices moving as one. The Mac Gloinn brothers sing with a calm, unshowy authority that pulls you closer rather than reaching out, and the songs unfold with a patient, tide-like momentum—never rushed, never overstated, always landing with emotional clarity.
Across the album, traditional ballads and airs sit naturally alongside original writing, with arrangements that are richly detailed without ever feeling busy. There’s a sense of space and air around everything: strings and subtle ensemble textures rise like weather behind the melodies, then fall away to leave the voices exposed again. That push and pull—between hush and swell, intimacy and scope—is part of what makes Nine Waves so absorbing. Even at its most expansive, it keeps the focus on story and feeling: loss, longing, resilience, the pull of place, and the way old songs can still speak directly to contemporary life.
What makes Nine Waves especially rewarding is its emotional range. It can feel devotional and tender one moment, then darkly dramatic the next, with long-form tracks that let melodies stretch and breathe until they become hypnotic. The album’s pacing is confident and immersive, the kind of record that invites full, start-to-finish listening—headphones, late night, or a quiet room where the harmonies can hang in the air. For anyone drawn to modern folk with roots in tradition—Lankum, Lisa O’Neill, The Gloaming, or contemporary ballad singing with cinematic depth—Nine Waves is a powerful, beautifully crafted listen.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
Tuaim
An Island
Lord Gregory
Blue Is The Eye
The Humours Of Glin
Go Away And Come Back Hither
Joyáíl
Her Mantle So Green
Fuaim
The Munster Jig / Tell Her I Am
Máire Bhán
