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Lake Effect News The "Lake Effect" page will be regularly updated with news, reviews and stories about Liz and the new CD. "I
came sudden, at the city's edge,
From liveireland.com/review.html, by Bill Margeson First up is the
amazing new album from Chicago's own Liz Carroll. Lake Effect is just
out on Green Linnet Records--so it will be available everywhere. We
didn't want to love or even like this album, to be brutally honest.
We have raved so often and so long about Liz Carroll, we thought,
"How nice it would be to NOT like something she does. Refreshing."
Well, she wins AGAIN!!! We love this album as much as Lost In The
Loop, which was her triumph of a creation about a year and a half
or two ago. As Liz said to me, "Lake Effect is really a sequel
to Lost In The Loop." Of course, she is right. Liz and guitar
accompanist John Doyle produced the album. Those production values,
the sequencing, the whole thing is perfection. There is such great
variety here, including a slip jig Liz offers with The Turtle Island
String Quartet out of California. Liz again writes all but a few of
the tunes. She is one of the best and most prolific tune writers around.
We have no ideas where these melodies keep coming from. But, come
they do and we are all the beneficiaries of it! We just can't go line
by line anymore on her. She is, very arguably, the best Irish traditional
fiddle player in the world. She hates those kinds of silly labels,
but we all know it, quite possibly, to be true. Look, this is like
flogging Beethoven. If you know anything about the music, all we need
say is, "Liz's new album is out." If you are just learning
about the music, start here with this album. Incredible talent, joined
by some of the best in the business like Chico Huff on bass, Mairtin
O'Connor on button box, Liz Knowles on fiddle, Kieran O'Hare on low
whistles, Michael Aharon on piano, Jackie Moran on percussion and
others. Let's not waste bytes on an unnecessary tune by tune analysis
here. Let's just say this is perfection. Will quite likely win Album
Of The Year-----AGAIN!!!!!! Just go get this. Good heavens, this woman
is incredible. It was released on August 20. Go. GO. GO!!!! From www.newsreview.com, by Bill Compton Chicago's Liz Carroll belongs to a preeminent group of Irish-American fiddlers that includes Martin Hayes, Kevin Burke and Dale Russ. As a composer she stands alone, working musical wonders within the tradition while eschewing fusion jazz or world music. For 12 years she kept a low profile, but with Lost in the Loop (2000) and now this, it's clear that her dazzling technique is matched only by her composing skills. Amid the 25 new tunes are variations from standard AA/BB structure in jigs and reels and enough twisty melodic innovations to thrill the fingers of any fiddler. One standout, "Catherine Kelly's/Lake Effect," incorporates a string quartet arrangement (Turtle Island guests) with a slip jig and tune. Carroll uses strong accompanists--former Solas guitarist John Doyle and Liz Knowles on fiddle and viola, quite effective on the "The Gypsy/The Hatchlings/The Long Bow." Transcendent. From
the Irish Echo, by Earle Hitchner On her previous, indie award-winning album, "Lost in the Loop," 13 of the 25 tunes Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll recorded were her own. That percentage increases dramatically on her new release, "Lake Effect," where she composed 25 of the 28 tunes. This is neither self-indulgence nor ego in flight. For the most part, the melodies she wrote are as well-defined as the three traditional tunes she covered, meeting the test of taste. A former All-Ireland senior fiddle champion and a National Heritage Fellowship recipient, Carroll composes tunes often inspired by family, friends, mentors, events, and places near and dear to her in Chicago. One of the most beautiful Carroll compositions on the new album is "A Day and an Age," a slow air acknowledging, she says, "the singers who transport immigrants back home." The ache of being homesick is almost palpable in her bowing, elegant and elegiac, with spare, note-perfect accompaniment from John Doyle on acoustic guitar and Michael Aharon on piano and cello. Another air Carroll wrote, "The Ghost," was for Marina Carr's play "By the Bog of Cats." This tune stands on its own not as theatrical incidental music but as a carefully crafted piece bolstered by two fiddling Liz's, Carroll and Knowles. It is a delicate arrangement of interweaving strings from Knowles, a former member of the John Whelan Band and Cherish the Ladies. The majority of music on the new album is at dance tempo. "Anlon McKinney/Mind the Dresser," two slides written by Carroll, are propelled by the kinetic button accordion playing of Galway's Máirtín O'Connor. "The Tractor Driver/A Tune for the Girls," reels she wrote for her uncle and her fellow String Sisters (Knowles, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Natalie MacMaster, Catriona MacDonald, and Annbjørg Lien), represent a tight, pared-back duet on just fiddle and guitar. In the traditional slip jig "Catherine Kelly's" paired with her own "Lake Effect," Carroll ventures into the classical-Americana mode popularized in recent years by Mark O'Connor, Yo-Yo Ma, and Edgar Meyer. Guesting with her is the Turtle Island String Quartet, and the mix of Carroll's fiddle with a violin, baritone violin, viola, and cello becomes an edgy track of traditional and classical strings sparking off each other. At times, "Lake Effect" relies a little too much on pyrotechnics (fury over fire) or on an attack imitative of Solas, especially in "The Rock Reel/The Morning Dew/Reeling on the Box." But she also seems to be relishing more risk-taking in her music, and as that rare homegrown talent who can combine virtuosic playing with prolific composing, Carroll makes music that shimmers like the "blue burst of lake" she quotes from a poem by another Chicago chronicler, Carl Sandburg. RADIO REACTION "Liz is a
favorite of ours and our listeners. Her new album 'Lake "I won't
mince any words - I think I could be perfectly content going to Liz's newest CD, "Lake Effect," released on August 20, 2002, is the much anticipated follow to her breakthrough recording, "lost in the loop." The new "Lake Effect" showcases the fiery musicianship of Liz's playing and composing, as she plays tribute to her hometown and its influence on her music. Liz's tunes in "Lake Effect" celebrate Chicago, from the Southside of her childhood, to her college life at DePaul University, to living in Rogers Park as a young woman, to her marriage at Old St. Pat's Church, to raising her children on the Westside. Produced by Liz with guitarist John Doyle, the album features great playing from John himself on guitar and bouzouki. Other special guests include The Turtle Island String Quartet on the title cut, Irish accordionist Máirtin O'Connor, and fiddler Liz Knowles, plus Kieran O'Hare, Jackie Moran, Emedin Rivera, Jim DeWan, Michael Aharon and Solas bassist Chico Huff. "lost in the loop," released in February of 2000, was praised throughout the Celtic world and resulted in Liz being named 2000 Irish Traditional Musician of the Year (Irish Echo) and the CD named 2000 Album of the Year (Indie Award). |
