CEILÍ MOSS is an acoustic folk-rock band from Belgium founded in 1996. We describe ourselves as « acoustic folk-rock with guts and melodies, with a Northern European edge, not afraid of colouring a bit outside of the lines ». Perhaps it is Genevieve Williams from Widdershins who described us best : « They are not as punk as The Pogues, but they have a bit of that attitude and it gives them an edge many folk groups lack ». Other recurring comparisons are Ambrozijn, The Waterboys, Tri Yann, Jaune Toujours, Les Ogres de Barback, the old Clannad …

If, like many, we started with (and still enjoy playing) the “Spanish drunken Danny rover of the County Down in the jar”, we have during our 14 years of activity constantly broadened our musical spectrum: Celtic, Flanders, Scandinavia, klezmer, medieval music, French chanson, Eastern Europe, ska, Balkanbeat, kleinkunst, singer-songwriter, blues, we take whatever we like, put it in our cauldron and whoever says it’s not bloody “orthodox” or poxy “as it should be” gets a smack bottom… We play an approximately 2/3-1/3 mix of our own tunes sung in English, French or Dutch, and of mistreated traditionals.

What more ? We’re probably not going to be “bigger than Oasis”, but our warm and heartfelt music has generally been well received everywhere we’ve played. When performing live, we are more in it for the energy and sincerity than for the academically irreproachable reproduction of the genre’s schemes. The line-up of CEILÍ MOSS consists of Matthieu Collard (fiddle), Stéphane Jalhay (guitar, banjo, mandola), Laurent Leemans (lead vocals, guitars, percussion), Thibaud Misson (double bass), Jérémy Pinera (drums, percussion) and Yves Van Elst (transverse flute, pipes, backing vocals). We can (and regularly do) play in smaller committee when and where it’s more appropriate.

So far we have released a demo tape in 1998 and three self-produced CDs: Be There & Be Drunk! in 2001, Glad To Find You Well in 2003 and On The Shore in 2006. Our fourth album La Vie Sent Quoi? Is since september 2010 available on our website, along with CD Baby, ITunes and other platforms. We have done several hundreds of gigs in all sorts of venues in Belgiun, France and The Netherlands (see a non-exhaustive list a bit further)

Ceilí, I guess most of you know, is an Irish word for a party with traditional dance music. Moss was the nickname of Alain Mossiat, boss of the pub “L”Eblouissant”, in Namur, where we first learned to deal with stage fright, back in the early 90s.

Source : Laurent Leemans