Talisk are a Scottish folk band composed of

Mohsen Amini Mohsen Amini (born 1993) is a Scottish concertinist. He is a co-founder and member of the folk trio Talisk and the folk band Ímar. Early life Amini was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to an English mother and an Iranian father. He began playing th ...

, Benedict Morris, and Graeme Armstrong. The band rose to prominence after winning the 2015

BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award The BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award is an annual competition for young folk musicians in the United Kingdom. It was first awarded in 1988 as the Young Tradition Award, taking its present name in 1998. Recent winners of the award include Brighde C ...

and the

MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media and ...

"Folk Band of the Year" category in 2017.

History

Talisk were formed in 2014 with Mohsen Amini, Hayley Keenan, and

Craig Irving Craig Irving is a multi-award-winning Scottish musician from Inverness, Scotland. He was formerly a guitarist and singer with Gaelic folk band Mànran and formerly of BBC Radio 2 Folk Award-winning trio, Talisk. Background Irving began playin ...

. Irving left to join Mànran, and was replaced on the guitar by Graeme Armstrong. In 2015 the band won the

. Following this Amini became the 2016

BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician The BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician competition has run annually since 2001. It exists to encourage young musicians to keep their tradition alive and to provide performance opportunities, tools and advice to help contestants make ...

. The success of the band continued to grow into 2017 where they were awarded "Folk Band of the Year" at the

. Amini then followed to be named the 2018 "Musician of the Year" at the

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...

. Their debut album, ''Abyss'', was released in 2016, and their second album, ''Beyond'', was released in 2018. That same year, they received the

Belhaven Bursary for Innovation in Scottish Music Belhaven Brewery is a brewery based in Belhaven, Scotland. The brewery dates from 1719, at least; by 2005 it had become the largest and oldest surviving independent brewery in Scotland. In November 2005, the Suffolk based brewery Greene Ki ...

, the largest music prize in Scotland. In September 2021, Hayley Keenan announced her departure from Talisk to return to classroom music education. She was replaced two days later by Benedict Morris.

Musical style

Neil McFadyen of

Folk Radio UK Folk Radio UK, is an online Independent Music Journal covering a broad range of Folk music, Global music, Independent music, American Primitive Guitar, Drone Music and other alternative offerings. Established in 2004 by Alex Gallacher. the websi ...

described their music in a review as having a "driving, fiery" sound. "It's hard to think of

nother Amalie Emmy Noether Emmy is the '' Rufname'', the second of two official given names, intended for daily use. Cf. for example the résumé submitted by Noether to Erlangen University in 1907 (Erlangen University archive, ''Promotionsakt Emmy Noet ...

band that has achieved so much and made such an impact on the trad music scene in their first three years," he wrote. "They just keep piling the energy into the music, and it's energy that sweeps their audience right along with them." A 2015 article on the same site by Johnny Whalley noted that "their music draws on the Irish as well as the Scottish tradition and generally cracks along at a lively pace with concertina and fiddle vying for the lead, driven by Craig's guitar. The musicianship is phenomenal, the enthusiasm infectious and guaranteed to put a smile on your face." Talisk are a purely instrumental band. Rob Adams of the ''

Herald Scotland ''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...

'' noted in a review that "in the absence of songs to vary the mood and tempo, they employ passages of reflection and trance-like motifs or offer a quiet melodic introduction."

Band members

Talisk, Underneath the Stars festival 2016 (27921528063)

Present

–

Concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

* Benedict Morris –

Fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

* Graeme Armstrong –

Guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

Past

* Hayley Keenan –

–

Discography

Albums

* ''Abyss'' (2016) * ''Beyond'' (2018) * ''Dawn'' (2022)

Singles

* ''Aura'' (2021) * ''Echo 22'' (2022) * ''Dystopia, Pt. 2'' (2022)

Compilations

*''BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2015'' (2015) *''The Mark Radcliffe Folk Sessions'' (2015) *''BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2017'' (2017) *''Celtic Colours Live, Vol.5'' (2017) *''The Rough Guide to Scottish Folk'' (2018)

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Musical groups established in 2014 Scottish folk music groups British musical trios 2014 establishments in Scotland