Pipedown - The First Measure

One of the MusicScotland top sellers of the year 2002.
One of the Greentrax Recordings top sellers of the year 2002.

(February 2002) 12 tracks: The Rebel, The Boys of Balivanich, Reels, The Old Hag, The Ass in the Graveyard, In with the Bricks, Hornpipes, Conrad the Bulgarian, The Spice of Life, The Ivy Leaf, The Silver Mower, Ian McGee's Romanian Boots.

The band Pipedown was formed in 1998, when it won the Danny Kyle Open Stage Award at Glasgow's 2001 Celtic Connections festival.

Drawing on influences from Scottish and Irish traditions, together with Celtic music worldwide, the result has been a powerful and distinctive sound, rich in melody and dynamics.

Lee Moore (bagpipes, Scottish smallpipes, whistles), from Co Tyrone in Northern Ireland, has been playing since the age of eight and is currently a member of the David Urquhart Travel Pipes and Drums. Axel Campbell (mandolin, mandola), from the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles, has played guitar, bass and mandolin in Edinburgh bands since settling there in 1993. Steve Reid (guitar), from Dunfermline in Fife, was previously guitarist with New Celeste, a rock and jazz-influenced Celtic band from Scotland, with whom he recorded two albums.

Steve Fivey (percussion) is from Denny, near Falkirk, and is the most recent member to join the band - as well as teaching at the Feisean and Gordon Gathering organisations, he is a member of the drum corps in the Scottish Gas Pipe Band (now the City of Edinburgh Pipe Band).

The album contains an intriguing selection of tunes from many sources, including Breton and Bulgarian, encompassing Scottish and Irish traditional material and more recent compositions from such prolific pens as Donald MacLeod, Allan MacDonald, Roddy MacDonald and Hamish Moore.