Michael Bede Dunlop - Bede

If ever there was an album that felt like the most perfect Autumn morning, this is it. It’s crisp, it’s lively, it’s rich in golden-toned bass, DERWENTWATER’S FAREWELL is the best introduction to BEDE you could have.

You can tell when musicians become one with their instruments when they play. That is exactly what comes through in A68.

Don’t make the almost-mistake we did; reach for your finest headphones or play it through your best speakers.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things from the album is the impressive space each note has to breathe. Nothing is stacked on top of each other; there isn’t a wall of sound because there is no competitiveness among the players to be heard. Each pluck, blow, press, and movement is a conscious choice; it’s skill in action.

BOG has this in droves: that big space and air. The creep of string screech, the taps, the non-commital sax, that sweeps in and out at seemingly planned and unplanned moments. Rich drags and rattles, frantic keys, all slow and simmer down to light, airy, and a reliable bass tugging along.

THANK YOU TO A FLOWER is one of the more melancholic tracks on the album; the first 1.34 is exactly the music you picture when you're feeling contemplative and looking out of a window in heavy rain. The rest unfolds well, but we would’ve paid double and more to hear that 1.34 continue to unfold with keys only. Or perhaps with the lightest of bass.

The closing using DERWENTWATER’S REPRISE gives you something familiar, and yet warmer. Rather than the driving bass from the opening, we are greeted with softness through the keys. This was a particularly sparkly track to our ear, the notes came through so cleanly on headphones.

At no point do they slide into the folk=slow trope. It is intimate, it is purposeful. They understand the resonance of wood, and fingers slide along strings just as much as notes on a scale. And more importantly, they know, very clearly, when to put that to the side, close their eyes, and play.