The Parting Glass – The Haar

The Haar should have been enjoying a summer of festivals, gigs and playing together, exploring the extraordinary connection they found recording their debut, eponymous album. Instead of that the lads, Adam Summerhayes, Murray Grainger and Cormac Byrne found they could not even meet Dublin-based Molly Donnery without either her or them having to spend a month in quarantine – not a great time to be an Anglo-Irish band! In spite of this they were keen to release something new, and to find a way to make it just flow – improvised and unplanned – as with their previous tracks. True to form they came up with a mad plan: Molly would send Cormac a rough vocal track, he would find a groove that lit up the music and send her his bodhrán track – recorded in one take to video. Molly would then sing over it, leaving space for what she imagined Adam and Murray would do. This went to Murray to add his accordion improvisation. Finally it came to Adam, who listened through a couple of times and added the final layer. Murray lined up the audios and Adam pulled together the videos. Somehow the connection was as strong as ever and the improvisations meshed perfectly, despite the distance – it is a Haar track and could not be anything else. The track was chosen on a zoom call; Adam wanted do something really well known to see how it would come out, Murray and Cormac said “no”, Molly laughed … and then Cormac said “why not” and suggested The Parting Glass to general agreement. This is the first track from their next album which will be released in Autumn 2021 Molly Donnery – Vocal Adam Summerhayes – Fiddle Cormac Byrne – Bodrán Murray Grainger – Accordion http://thehaar.ie

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