As a listener I love deep loud bass that shakes your body to the core

KURATED NO. 281
VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL 49
RECENT RELEASE Sunwise by Brìghde Chaimbeul
PART 2 OF 2: THE JOY OF MUSICAL DISCOVERY

Screenshot 2026 06 26 At 4.56.36 pm

Album cover for Sunwise

CONTENTS

Part 2 of 2: The Joy of Musical Discovery

There’s a unique and particular joy in finding a musician who’s new to you. You might catch a riff they’re playing. Or a turn of phrase grabbing you just the right way. Perhaps you heard or read about them in an interview and sense the presence of a like mind. And then you listen and check out as much of their music as you can find.

My ears and eyes are constantly tuned in and I come across a generous share of surprises and musical finds. In the past few weeks I’ve found two such artists. The previous post highlighted Oregon’s Anna Tivel.

Today’s post features groundbreaking Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul.
She’ll be at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival July 18 and 19.

SATURDAY 12:10 – 1:20pm East Stage
SUNDAY 12:20 – 1:35pm Trad-ically Hip East Stage

Screenshot 2026 06 24 At 3.46.42 pm

On the balancing point of musical tradition and experimentation, Brìghde Chaimbeul encompasses both in her innovative work.

DANCING TO A DIFFERENT DRONE

“As a listener I love deep loud bass that shakes your body to the core”

Steeped in Scotland’s music and folklore Brìghde Chaimbeul‘s expertise and innovative approach with the Scottish smallpipes has sparked a revival of interest in the instrument. With a passion for deep musical tradition she also embraces minimalism, experimentation and the consistent presence of the mesmerising double note drone. Her sound sits on a balancing point valuing convention while exploring the hypnotic and electronic sounds of folk trance.

Just 17 when she won the BBC’s Young Folk Awards in 2016, Chaimbeul (full name pronounced Breetch-er Hime-bowl) has recorded three well-received and award-winning albums and toured the world while also recording with an array of artists. They include Montreal-based Colin Stetson on her second album – Carry Them With Us –and guesting onstage and on record with alt-musician Caroline Polcheck’s 2023 album Desire I Want To Turn Into You.

“My structure is rooted in tradition and traditional piping,” Chaimbeul tells online magazine 15 Questions.net. “However repetition is a technique I use to lock in with the drone sound and create a trance-like feel to the tunes. Improvisation is also a natural part of playing traditional music. There is a freedom to not being very structured in your playing and it means each performance or take is different.

However, she shares another relatively surprising side to her musical taste: “As a listener I love deep loud bass that shakes your body to the core,” Chaimbeul says. “It’s an intense experience, but the physicality of the sound is amazing. I think extremes in music can draw out emotion on a deeper level, especially in a live setting”.

Screenshot 2026 06 24 At 3.53.15 pm

Sunwise: music to embrace winter


Her third album, Sunwise, released last summer leans more towards a solo effort than her first two. “This record follows the embrace of winter time; the closing in of darkness, the cold, the pull to turn inward,” she says in the liner notes. “But also, the customs of the season, and gathering for the ceilidh: songs and stories told round the fire; where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur.”

Her first two releases from the album were Bog an Lachan and She Went Astray. Tapping into her extensive studies in Scottish folklore, Chaimbeul shared a background story for Bog an Lachan – a condensed excerpt from The Gaelic Otherworld by Scottish folklorist John Gregorson Campbell (1836-1891): “The Gaelic belief recognises no Fairyland or realm different from the earth’s surface on which men live and move. The dwellings are underground, but it is on the natural face of the earth the Fairies find their sustenance and pasture their cattle, and on which they forage and roam.

“The first of winter and the last night of the year is a favourite time for encounters with the fairies, as well as on wild stormy nights of mist and driving rain. They are given to leaving their dwellings underground and taking away whomever of the human race they find helpless or unguarded or unwary.”

She describes She Went Astray as, “An old vocal dance song I found from Miss Peigi MacRae of North Glendale (South Uist Island). It dates from 1934. This song is all about the rhythm of the language. In this track I wanted to embrace the slightly disorientating feeling that comes with two or three things happening at once!”

Chaimbeul wrote three of the album’s eight tunes including the two lengthy opening pieces – Dùsgadh/Waking and A’ Chailleach which both address the coming of winter.

The nine-minute opener features five minutes of slightly varied and ominous drones giving way to lighter piping as it ends. With repeating loops and featuring Colin Stetson on saxophone, the 7-minute A’ Chailleach, is about a folkloric character, who makes winter worse. Chaimbeul lends her voice singing a seeming incantation.

Her third composition, Duan, is a sombre spoken word contribution from her father, writer and broadcaster Aonghas Phàdraig, addressing a disorderly procession that went three times sunwise around each house in a village. The album ends on a one-minute duet with Chaimbeul’s brother Eòsaph on The Rain is Wine and the Stones are Cheese. The song marks winter solstice delivered in the style of canntaireachd, which is a way of singing bagpipe music.

Screenshot 2026 06 26 At 4.35.40 pm

How the Scottish smallpipes work

The Scottish smallpipes use three specific drones – two tenor drones and the bass drone – plus a chanter and an air bag to create its harmonic sound. The tenor drones are slightly shorter pipes and they play the same note (low A) one octave higher than the bass drone.

As the longest of the three pipes, the bass drone plays the fundamental note one or two octaves below the melody. Players cradle a bag of air under their arm to make the sound while setting the three hollow wooden drones and chanter across the shoulder. Unlike the drones the chanter has finger holes to to play the melody. Chaimbeul notes the holding and playing the pipes are “…very physical… it feels very connected to your body.”

Kurated is tuned in
Kris Sig Plastic V3

26 June 2026