Groundbreaking progressive Celtic band, Alba’s Edge, will team up with local folk-rock favorites, A Thousand Years at Sea, at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, CA on Thursday, April 30th at 7:30 PM to celebrate the release of the debut Alba’s Edge album, Run to Fly. Coming off a month-long tour in Spain and following the release of the band’s 4th studio recording last fall, A Thousand Years at Sea is excited to welcome back one of the band’s founding members, Neil Pearlman, for this rare and highly-anticipated collaborative performance.
The product of a brother-sister collaboration between pianist Neil Pearlman and fiddler Lilly Pearlman, Alba’s Edge has been rapidly gaining international attention for their blend of Celtic music with Jazz, Latin and Funk styles. Neil and Lilly are joined by Doug Berns on bass and Jacob Cole on drums, fleshing out a unique musical experience that layers original fiddle tunes, cycling riffs with hypnotic grooves to make each piece a journey, pulling the listener along for the ride.
To record Run to Fly, Alba’s Edge worked with producer Aidan O’Rourke, the 2014 BBC Folk Musician of the Year, one of Scotland’s greatest living fiddle players and a member of the experimental Scottish folk trio Lau (“The UK’s best live band” -The Guardian). The first full length release from the band, Run to Fly presents their latest original material that has been written and developed over the last year. The music draws on the imagery of sunrise, life cycles and cosmic cycles, inspired by the double meaning inherent in the band’s name: the word “Alba” as both Gaelic for “Scotland” and Spanish for “Dawn”.
Joining Alba’s Edge for this special celebration concert will be A Thousand Years at Sea, who have been making waves in the acoustic music scene with performances up and down the West Coast, including appearances with world-renown Scottish fiddler, Alasdair Fraser, at theFreight and Salvage. Fiddlers, guitarists, singers, and songwriters Colin Cotter and Ethan Lewis form the core of this ever-evolving exploration of contemporary American songwriting and the living tradition of Celtic music, and they are joined on this musical adventure by groove-master Isaac James on djembe and drum kit. The music ATYAS crafts stays true to the band’s roots in folk music, but is constantly growing in exciting new ways, integrating Celtic, rock, Americana, West African rhythms, and instrumental improvisation “into something sweet and subtle” (Sacramento News Review).
In addition to Alba’s Edge and ATYAS, this show will feature special guests from the local Bay Area fiddling community. Don’t miss this very special chance to celebrate the new album just as it is fully released to the public! Tickets are $17 in advance and $19 at the door. The Freight and Salvage is located at 2020 Addison St, Berkeley, CA. More information can be found at www.albasedge.com and www.athousandyearsatsea.com