Kyle Carey

“In her gentle, modest way Kyle Carey represents both a well traveled path, but also an innovation” ~ Celtic Beat Magazine

For Kyle Carey, the 'well traveled path' of traditional music, wherever its origin, is busy for a reason. Nowhere else are the universal and eternal elements of the human experience so profoundly expressed.

For a contemporary artist to commit herself to that path, and to do so while writing original material, is to blaze that path forward, and Carey has done so through 4 full length studio albums that showcase the rich tapestry of her acoustic storytelling. They also display the stylistic fusion applauded by Celtic
Beat, a synthesis that Carey calls Gaelic Americana, which is something different in depth from the Celtic Americana usually played by American musicians.

And Carey has earned the right to set herself apart because no other American musician has done the sort of homework she has. Raised by her schoolteacher parents first in the Alaskan Bush, where she heard Yup’ik Eskimo spoken as often as she heard English, and then in rural New Hampshire, she studied literature in college, and then travelled to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, on a Fulbright Fellowship. There she began her study of the Gaelic language and its music.

That was followed by a 2 year sojourn on Scotland’s Isle Of Skye, where she cemented her command of the Gaelic language and fell under the tutelage of Christine Primrose, a native of nearby Lewis, and one of Scotland’s most revered traditional singers. From Primrose she learned the secrets of pronunciation and tone that distinguish those who sing from the deep heart of that music. She returned to America fluent in the language of her ancestors and possessed by, and possessing, the artistry of their music. It is these abilities and qualities that make Carey’s Gaelic Americana its own special thing.

All of which is on display in a series of stunning albums, each containing several traditional Gaelic language songs delivered in the immemorial Primrose style, each filled out with original music that spans continents and oceans.

Her debut album, "Monongah", was recorded in western Ireland and produced by Donogh Hennesy of the acoustic super group Lùnasa. Its follow-up, "North Star", was recorded in Scotland and produced by Seamus Egan, a founding member of Solas.

"The Art Of Forgetting", Carey’s 3rd album, came out of New Orleans and proves that the lilt of Gaelic music can play well with the grit of Cajun, Delta Blues, and jazz stylings. Produced by 4 time Grammy winner Dirk Powell, the album unites an all star international cast of musicians. Louisiana’s Sam Broussard on guitar, Scotland’s John McCusker on fiddle, the Netherlands’ Ron Janssen on octave mandolin, Nashville’s Kai Welch on trumpet, Ireland’s Mike McGoldrick on flute, and North Carolina’s Rhiannon Giddens on backing vocals.

Forthcoming in 2025 is album 4, "The Last Bough". Kai Welch, who contributed the trumpet parts to "The Art Of Forgetting", returns as producer of an album recorded at the Peach Tree Studios in Nashville, and Mike McGoldrick returns on whistle and flute. Other famed musicians include Anthony DaCosta on guitar, Ruth Moody on English language backing vocals, James Graham on Gàidhlig vocals, Jamie Dick on percussion, Christian Sedelmeyer on fiddle, Sam Howard on upright bass, and Kai Welch on piano, accordion, synth, and, says Carey, 'general wizardry'.

Among the songs in Gaelic on "The Last Bough" is a traditional lullaby that Carey has sung to the child born to her and her husband in 2022, and which includes on this recording both verses Carey composed herself and the sound of her son’s heartbeat. While this album is as faithful as previous works to the building blocks of Carey’s original music, bluegrass, gospel, Celtic and Appalachian ballads and fiddle tunes, in the lyrics, Appalachian folktale, Dustbowl narrative, the Old and New Testaments, Greek mythology, the rough hewn poetry of West Virginia’s Louise McNeill, "The Last Bough" is more of a concept album in its focus on themes of fertility, infertility, and motherhood, on the experience of occupying a tiny house and living simply, and on the natural beauty of rural Vermont.

"The Last Bough" is also the next giant step down Carey’s path toward a new American sort of folk music. Her music remains innovative not only in its bone deep feel for Celtic tradition, but in all that she is able to graft on to it by way of a personal vision as capacious as the North American continent.

Celtic Beat has noted that some Celtic purists have found Carey’s Gaelic Americana upsetting, which is good, as 'that is what makes her such a valuable artist'. A spokesman for the World Music Network, which distributed "The Art Of Forgetting", entirely agrees. “Carey represents the true vision of a transatlantic artist”.

There may well be a well travelled path for folk music in these transatlantic lanes, but no one has done it like Carey, to shift into reverse, to go back to the graves of her ancestors, to learn the language they spoke, the songs they sang, and to use this knowledge in creating a new sort of American folk music, one that continues to cross boundaries, to forge alliances.

“Take the North Star for your journey”, Carey sings in her duet with Rhiannon Giddens. She has done so, and it has brought her, and her audience, to this, her 4th release, and to the most fully wrought realization of her vision.

"The Last Bough" will be released digitally and physically on September 26th, 2025.