EXPERIENCE ASLEEP AT THE REEL
NEWS
All The Latest Gigs and Appearances
HOMES AND HEARTS
The band’s third album of original music, Homes and Hearts is out and about. The songs were inspired by Mark’s reading of a number of texts about aspects of Irish Australian history. You can hear Homes and Hearts on the usual streaming platforms – Spotify, Apple Music etc. If you want to download a copy (or any of the previous cds) you can do so from our Bandcamp site https://asleepatthereel.bandcamp.com/ Of course if you want a copy of the cd itself and you can’t get to one of our gigs please contact us at asleepatthereelcelticband@gmail.com and we’ll gladly post one to you for a very reasonable price. As you are probably aware, artists make virtually nothing from the streaming platforms so cd purchases or downloads from Bandcamp really help us out.
UPCOMING GIGS
All gigs in 5 piece format unless otherwise stated
8 December 2024 2-4pm Queensland Cruising Yacht Club
15 December 2024 4-7pm Cardigan Bar
https://cardiganbar.com.au/home
21 December 2024 1:30-4:30pm Finnigan's Chin, Keperra
3 piece format
24 January 2025 6-9pm Club Yeronga
3 piece format
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions or comments.
ASLEEP AT THE REEL
Celtic Soul, Country Roots, Australian Heart
Asleep at the Reel are a genre hopping Brisbane-based ensemble equally comfortable with an Irish jig or singalong as they are with a dance hall country shuffle. Yes it’s folk music – but not as we know it Jim!
The band’s repertoire is delivered with finesse by high quality musicians – including Tamworth Golden Fiddle Award winner Hugh Curtis. They can play a wide range of covers – from Dylan, Van Morrison, The Beatles, Steve Earle and many more.
Their original music is powered by the deft song writing of Mark Cryle, who rose to prominence in the 1990s with Spot the Dog and was once described by the Courier Mail’s Noel Mengel as ‘one of the best songwriters in Australia’. Cryle’s songs, according to a recent reviewer in Dublin’s Irish Music Magazine, ‘evoke the centres of our Irish world whether it be the pub or the parish; he has conjured up places where craic and companionship are the glue of life’.
Asleep at the Reel have now released two cds of original music – The Emerald Dream (2018) and Time and Tide (2021). Each is a rich and diverse collection which joins the dots between Celtic music and contemporary Australian song a ‘wonderful melding of Celtic influences and Australian stories’ as another reviewer noted.
Asleep at the Reel have forged original songs and tunes which one commentator has recently called ‘the cultural vaccine for the Irish Diaspora.’
The band take its stylings from their roots in the peat-smoked pubs of Ireland and Scotland, from the kitchen, the hearth, the veranda, the dance hall and the shearing shed all the way to the stage where they throw in a little backbeat just for the fun of it.
