Dorec-a-belle talk to invernessGiGs prior to their album sampler launch at Hush on the 27th of May, 2012.
Dorec-a-belle seems to be building a great deal of momentum, can you tell what was your highlight of the last year?
It’s really hard to single out one highlight because there were so many! For us, getting the opportunity to support The Staves and The Bonfire Band when they toured in the Highlands last year was absolutely fantastic as we are huge fans of both bands. Also supporting the singer / songwriter / guitar-virtuoso Nick Harper in Glasgow was an amazing privilege for us. Of course playing at Belladrum in 2011 was fantastic fun as always and we’re so excited to be playing again this year on the fantastic Potting Shed stage!
Playing to 350 people at Celtic Connections’ Danny Kyle Open Stage was brilliant – we’d had no idea there would such a big audience or that people queue up for tickets for that event. Our performance went out live on Celtic Music Radio and we got a lot of really good feedback from that it all, which was very encouraging.
We’ve just brought out our first recording – a 5-song album sampler – and just to see it in our hands has definitely been a highlight for us! We’ve had quite a bit of airplay with it already, including several times on Radio Scotland’s Iain Anderson show and other stations, so we’re been very chuffed with that. We’ve even had presenters from radio stations in Ireland and Israel asking us to send them a copy to play on air!
We recall the description of a ” a female Mumford & Sons” being used to describe your early gigs, do you think it’s a fair description, how do you guys normally describe your music?
We haven’t heard of this this ourselves but our sound is quite hard to define we feel because we use acoustic instruments, but we write all our own songs and are not in any sense a traditional music band. We would probably describe ourselves as indie-folk as we have an acoustic, fairly rootsy sound with four-part harmonies and instrumentation of guitar, sax, accordion and cello (oh and sometimes two banjos!!), but we all have diverse musical backgrounds so bring a lot of different styles and influences to what we think is an exciting melting pot of music! At the end of the day though it’s definitely within the broad genre of folk music.
Given the array of musical experience talent and experience that you guys have, how have you found coming together as group and how do you set about creating music?
The first few months together in early 2011 were an exploration of the sound we could create and where we could go musically with this rather bizarre mix of instruments! Through weekly rehearsals we’ve gradually grown in confidence with each other’s playing and singing, and our sound has really gelled to the point where we feel we have a great group dynamic that is very conducive to some exciting creativity! We love how the songs have grown and developed over the winter with pretty intense work on harmonies and arrangements, and love being able to bounce musical ideas off each other!
How did the idea for the launch at Hush come about, and how are you looking forward to it?
go-North, Abigail Grey and Coco have all used Hush for live music events, and we liked the idea of using this great venue for our launch. We also love the colour scheme (red and black) which matches the colours on our cd sleeve, our website and also our dresses on the night! Proprietor Shane Manning offered us use of the venue and we jumped at the chance. So many people have been so fantastically supportive of us over the last year and lots of folk have kept asking when we’d have an album ready, that we are now delighted to be able to invite them all to the launch of our cd, which is a taster of an album that we hope to record later this year.
Following your announcement for Belladrum, what else have you got planned for the summer?
Our currently announced dates are:
27th May – Hush 8.30pm -Launch of album sampler
2nd June – Greenhouse, Dingwall 2pm
14th June – HMV Eastgate – Acoustic set in store. Time tbc
16th June – Greenhouse, Dingwall – Midsummer Medicine Show Benefit. Time tbc
21st June – Cawdor Castle – BBC Antiques Roadshow. Time tbc
4th August – Potting Shed Stage, Belladrum 6pm
9th August – Ironworks – Summer Showcase
We do plan to do a mini-tour in Glasgow & Ayrshire, to promote the album sampler and hope to record an album, possibly live in a church or hall. Watch this space…..!
For those unable to make the gig on the 27th of May, the album sampler will be available to buy instore at HMV Inverness, or just get in touch via our website www.dorec-a-belle.com.
