Sam Brimacombe
An award-winning trio from Isle of Man brings its big band sound to this weekend’s National Celtic Festival at Portarlington.
Barrule comprises guitarist Adam Rhodes, 19-year-old fiddler Tomas Callister and accordion player Jamie Smith.
Rhodes said they played a contemporary version of their island’s Manx music, which he described as similar to traditional Celtic tunes.
He believed the festival would be the first time Australian audiences had heard Manx music live.
Rhodes said Barrule would play songs from its self-titled album, which won best debut record at Belgium’s 2014 Spiral Earth Awards.
“We’ve travelled around the UK and Europe and Belgium seems to come up quite a lot,” he laughed.
“But we’ve never been to Australia, so we’re really looking forward to it.”
Rhodes said few musicians made a living out of Manx music, so he was excited to bring the sound to a new country.
“Manx music doesn’t seem to travel often,” Rhodes said. “It’s a privilege to be able to show it off.”
Rhodes described the band’s sound as traditional Celtic music with a modern twist and contemporary chord structures to “keep it interesting”.
