Entertainment Architects – Music PR Ireland

SPEECH PROJECT

ALBUM OUT FEBRUARY 3RD 2012

Speech Project is an album of new compositions by Gerry Diver featuring exclusive spoken word contributions from Shane MacGowan, Damien Dempsey, Christy Moore, Martin Hayes and Danny Meehan.  Archive interviews from Joe Cooley and Margaret Barry also feature in the compositions.

The music is derived from the melody and rhythm of the spoken words.  Naturally, all spoken words have pitch and rhythm inherent within them. Whilst the music borrows from Irish traditional idioms, the album is by no means traditional. Using Irish trad ‘snippets,’ Amercian 20th century forms glued together with some of the best known voices in Ireland, the music was graciously described by one of the interviewees as ‘a kind of folk minimalism on the cutting edge of folk crossover’

Whilst listening to a recorded interview of the late great accordion player Joe Cooley, Gerry noticed that the voice sounded like it was in the key of B flat minor and there also seemed to be a slip jig rhythm to Joe’s voice.  Gerry put the interview into his apple mac and teased out the faint ‘pitch’ tones and rhythms in Joe’s voice …these musical hues formed the basis for two new pieces;’ When in New York’ and ‘Old Time Musicians.’

Upon hearing these two pieces Christy Moore immediately agreed to collaborate on the project inviting Gerry over to Dublin where Gerry spent some time interviewing Christy at his home, with the agreement that whatever was captured would be turned into a musical composition. Two new pieces resulted from that visit.

Subsequent get togethers and interviews with Shane MacGowan, Damien Dempsey, Martin Hayes and Danny Meehan have given birth to more tracks and the album is due for release in Ireland on Feb 3rd, 2012.

Born in Manchester to Irish parents, Gerry Diver started playing Irish traditional music at an early age. Starting on the fiddle and progressing to a large number of instruments (mandolin, banjo, accordion, whistles, guitar, piano, drums, bodhran and a few more), Gerry entered the Fleadh Cheoil held each year,  winning a total of six British champion titles on various instruments.

A move to Ireland by the family at the age of fourteen saw Gerry immerse himself even more in Irish traditional music as well as diverging into electric guitars, synths and electronic music.  The two musical worlds existed side by side and at the age of eighteen Gerry was accepted into the ethnomusicology degree course in University College Cork where he studied under famed Irish composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.

After graduating from college Gerry moved to London and quickly became immersed in the thriving London Irish music scene which existed in the early 90s. Gerry joined the Irish/world music group Sin é and the group were signed by Paddy Moloney (The Chieftains) to his new world music label (Wicklow Records/BMG).  The resulting album ‘Deep Water Drop-off’ explored Irish music’s meeting with other folk traditions from around the world set against an urban backdrop of subtle programming.

Following the disbandment of Sin é (due to members leaving the country)  Gerry recorded a solo fiddle album, ‘Diversions’ an Irish trad album with a global outlook.

Roll on a few years and Gerry joined Shane McGowan’s band The Popes as well as recording and performing with artists such as The Irish Folk Ballet company, Van Morrison, Laurie Anderson and uber rock producer Youth (Paul McCartney, U2, The Verve).

In recent years Gerry has moved into music production. In 2007 Gerry produced English folk singer Lisa Knapp’s album “Wild & Undaunted.’ The album was a mix of lo-fi nu folk and English traditional song combining stark string arrangements with dulcimer, autoharp and timpanis all supporting Lisa Knapp’s heavenly voice. The album was voted ‘Folk Album of the Year’ by Mojo magazine (2007) and was nominated for a BBC2 Folk Award.

Subsequent production work has seen Gerry sit in the producer’s chair with pop artists such as Paul Heaton (frontman from The Beautiful South, The Housemartins), Justin Currie (Del Amitri) and acoustic artists such as Alasdair Roberts, Naomi Bedford, Le Cheile, The Straw Bear Band, J Eoin and Sam Lee amongst others.

The Speech Project sees Gerry’s composition and productions taken to new heights in a unique meeting of spoken word and music that is firmly rooted in Irish music culture.