Nan's Folk Fringe SUNDAY: Bell Lungs & Alula Down

“Bell Lungs” is the moniker of Scottish-Turkish vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and creative facilitator Ceylan Hay.

Taking a freewheeling, magpie attitude to ambient, noise, free improvisation, psychedelia, jazz, post-rock, minimalism and folk, her music creates subtly shifting sound worlds drawing on natural cycles, environmental disaster and the microcosmic aspects of relationships. A vaguely obsessive instrument collector, she integrates vocals, strings, keys, tuned percussion and woodwinds into lushly textured layers and loops. However, it is her vocal mastery which is most striking, a resonant instrument acting as a conduit for the emotions, described in reviews as “disarming” and “vaulting”. She loves to tour, and has performed widely across Europe.

Ceylan relishes performing in unusual locations including the top deck of a double decker bus circling the streets of Glasgow, a post-apocalyptic former sugar silo in upstate New York, the oldest Tudor House in Sheffield, a boat cruising along Dover beach, the charred ruins of a nuclear bunker in Edinburgh and inside a hydroelectric power station situated deep within the bowels of Ben Cruachan in Argyll. An interdisciplinary artist with an intuitive gift for sensitive collaboration, she frequently composes for theatre, dance and spoken word.

https://bell-lungs.com/bio/

ALULA DOWN is a duo of Kate Gathercole & Mark Waters.

Our music grew from relationship and explores connection – considering the magical and ordinary in our everyday becoming-with / being-here.

Drawing from varied musical roots, we make use of improvisation, collage, drone, field recording, sparsity – silence – fragility, noise, dialogue and textured soundscape.

We often work with folk song. Many traditional and vernacular songs illuminate dispossession and inequality, and our work explores the divisions between self and other that have been mediated through the binaries of institutionalised colonialism.

Alula Down have been acclaimed by The Guardian ‘Folk Album of the Month’.
We live in Herefordshire and have played music together since we first met.

Recent musical collaborations include ‘a flat field’ – a group of 10 musicians exploring microtonal durational drone / work with multi-award winning author Max Porter / playing with celebrated banjo player Jacken Elswyth on her album At Fargrounds.

We also sing and play with psych-folk band Sproatly Smith, make improv noise with rushes/esp, and sing a cappella with the Bushel Bag Carollers.

Part of The Weirdshire Society, we support local shows featuring folk, left-field and experimental live music, contributing to the DIY music ecosystem.

We also run seasonal community folk song choirs in Herefordshire. More details here on the natural voice network.

https://aluladown.wordpress.com/about/

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