None
EN
#5101, From the Soundcheck Podcast: Kelly Moran and Ye Vagabonds
[]
The latest stories from www.wnyc.org
From the Soundcheck Podcast series of in-studio performances, New York composer and producer Kelly Moran plays prepared piano. Plus, Dublin-based folk duo Ye Vagabonds play new tunes.
New York composer, pianist, and producer Kelly Moran’s music draws on everything from classical to dance to metal, but ends up sounding like none of those. She has become known for her music for prepared piano – a regular piano whose strings have things like metal or wood placed on the strings to alter the sound. Moran has also worked with electronic keyboards, and has recorded music for unaltered, completely acoustic piano. (She has also composed for classical musician Margaret Leng Tan, toured with Oneohtrix Point Never and FKA Twigs, and worked with other visionary contemporaries like Kelsey Lu and Yves Tumor.) Her 2025 record, Don’t Trust Mirrors (Warp Records), combines all three kinds of keyboards. Kelly Moran has brought her audio interface, her tools, and her bags of screws and bolts to modify and prepare our piano's insides while reserving some of the lower octaves of untreated acoustic piano. Kelly Moran plays new works in-studio.
Also, hear from Dublin-based duo Ye Vagabonds, who are the brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn. They grew up in rural Carlow but moved to Dublin in 2012 and became known on the traditional Irish, blues and folk scenes in the city, playing folk songs as well as their own original material, (Bandcamp). They’re part a wave of bands who’ve remade or extended the folk tradition; they’ve also collaborated with members of the Dublin new music group Crash Ensemble. Their award-winning music is a traditional mix of traditional Irish and European music, old time American tunes, sibling harmonies, and the music of the 1960s folk revival. Ye Vagabonds latest album is called All Tied Together, and they’ll play some of their new songs, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik