On their powerful, cinematic new album, All Tied Together, the multi-award-winning Irish band Ye Vagabonds deliver deeply evocative original songs infused with memory, tribute, and gratitude. Throughout, a strong sense of home prevails, both their own hard-won digs, past and present, and an inner refuge for anyone longing for connection beyond time and geography. Rising from the ashes of the 2008 economic collapse, the Mac Gloinn brothers – Brian and Diarmuid – first performed in the streets together as buskers. They took on the moniker Ye Vagabonds while creating now-legendary music nights and community-building events in their native Carlow, and later in Dublin. While initially achieving renown as purveyors of traditional music mixed with folk-based originals, the Mac Gloinns have increasingly focused on honing their own material. Ye Vagabonds have since evolved into a robust collective – a sonically unique ensemble featuring layered acoustic and electric guitars, trumpet, upright bass, Moog synthesizer, harmonium, bouzouki, fiddle, and the blood harmony of the siblings’ distinctive, multi-hued voices. All Tied Together was recorded almost entirely live in an old Galway house, with acclaimed producer Philip Weinrobe (Big Thief, Adrienne Lenker) at the helm. The dynamic arrangements are credited to a group of (up to ten) musicians. No one wore headphones. The brothers also cite fiction writers George Saunders and Claire Keegan as particular inspirations. In All Tied Together, Ye Vagabonds render the unavoidable things in life as a cause for singing. That singing is best done together in a room, where the magic of a well-wrought song defies loss and shadow, and people, places, and dreams live in the light again.
