Irish trad hits the Finnish line with Slow Moving Clouds

PROBABLY no festival will bring as many different musical styles to Cork this year as Sounds From a Safe Harbour, returning this week after a much-lauded debut in 2015.

Among that eclectic lineup is one of the most intriguing groups to have emergedin the last few years — Slow Moving Clouds, the trio of Dublin fiddler Danny Diamond, Cork cellist Kevin Murphy and Finnish nyckelharpa player Aki.

The group’s method, as evinced by their debut album Os, is to reach back into the traditional repertoire of Ireland and Finland to create a new, hybrid sound world, one in keeping with a mood of reinvention and invigoration that has taken in the trad world, winning new audiences and challenging preconceptions.