Sligo based group NoCrows has been making waves in the folk and world music circuit since 2007, playing a unique blend of Irish traditional, classical and world music. In the past two years NoCrows has played Glastonbury, Dranouter and Labadoux Festivals and countless other dates around Europe.
NoCrows is a quartet of Sligo musicians from very different backgrounds: Steve Wickham (of Waterboys fame) on violin and vocals, moved to Sligo from his native Dublin in the early nineties and has been an integral part of Sligo’s music scene ever since. Mallorcan maestro Felip Carbonell, on Spanish guitar and vocals, has resided in Strandhill for over 15 years, as has Swiss multi-instrumentalist Anna Houston, who is as comfortable playing cello in Sligo Baroque Orchestra as she is on banjo and mandolin in local trad sessions. The quartet is completed by versatile double bassist Eddie Lee, the band’s only Sligo native, who has been part of Sligo’s modern music scene, performing with rock, soul, jazz, folk, world and classical groups since 1981. The group also regularly features, in addition to the above, Dublin based Russian violin virtuoso Oleg Ponomarev.
NoCrows repertoire is truly global as their music ranges from Portugal to Moldova, from Brittany to Russia, from Venezuela to Greece and beyond. Always on the lookout for a good tune, the band borrows from the classical oeuvre as it does from jazz, trad, folk and world music.
The group has two previous CDs on its own label Crows Records and Dervish’s Whirling Discs. The live debut CD, Live at the Strand was recorded in late 2006 and released in 2007 to critical acclaim. (“Swing rarely felt this good”- Siobhan Long of The Irish Times). The second, Magpie (2008), described by The Irish Times as “A beautifully wrought selection of instrumental music”, caught the public imagination once more. “Magpie was NoCrows just beginning to discover our own voice”, says Eddie Lee, “it was an album we are very proud of and contains original material written by each member. We have been mixing genres for a few years now, and NoCrows on the Moon is a logical progression, involving more original material and some of the many musicians that have influenced us in our lifelong musical journey”.
Members of the band can be heard performing an acoustic session every Wednesday, in what they describe as their musical birthplace, ‘Shoot the Crows’ pub in Sligo. The band’s CDs, distributed by Claddagh records, are available in all good record stores, online at Townsend Records (UK) and CD Baby (worldwide) and all good download sites.
For tour dates and other info, see www.nocrows.net
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"The melting pot that is No Crows borrows from the cosmopolitanism of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Loyko's innovations (with just a tincture of the freewheeling of Django Reinhart) for their debut Swing rarely felt this good ". Siobhan Long, Irish Times 2006
".a beautifully wrought selection of instrumental music. You can sense the pleasure they find in each other's playing." Joe Breen, Irish Times, July 2008
