Duo combine space with trad

AT FIRST, it seems hard to comprehend how Géza Frank and Jean Damei’s new album Event Horizon can incorporate traditional Irish and Scottish music with cosmological and astrophysical themes such as promixa centauri, photon wave, pulsar and meteor showers, writes Aidan Donaghy.

Upon listening to the album, the eclectic sound of modern day house music is softly mixed in with uilleann pipes, whistles, flutes and the fiddle, which goes hand in hand with the space exploration theme on the album cover.

Austrian Géza Frank and Frenchman Jean Damei both graduated with a BA in Irish music and dance from the University of Limerick. While Frank went on to win numerous prizes competing in Highland piping competitions, Damei continued his studies at the University of Limerick and collected his masters degree in Irish traditional music performance.

The duo, alongside synthesiser Barry Reid and violinist David Lombardi, travelled to CERN on the Geneva-Franco border to make a music video for their track Antimatter. CERN is an organisation which conducts research into what the universe is made of and how it works.

This is the first album of numerous albums which will be released as part of the Event Horizon project. Géza explained: ‘The age of space exploration is upon us and within our lifetime we will see technological leaps beyond our imagination.

‘We wanted to create a musical language that reflects this age.

‘We work a lot with musical and sonic colours and temperatures as well as sub-bass sounds in order to try to describe these concepts, such as the intense heat of the meteors into our atmosphere or the rhythmic pulses of a pulsing radio star.’

Jean added: ‘I read a lot of articles and books on the subject and when I was growing up I watched a lot of programmes about the universe. It’s really exciting to combine this passion with my love for music.’

The live show, which will include a variety of world-leading dancers, will go on tour in 2018 and for more information on the Event Horizon project, visit www.eventhorizonproject.com