Category: Music

Mark your calendar and start building your wishlist because Bandcamp Friday is almost here!

Bandcamp Day is coming back this Friday, May 2, 2025 and I have two new albums to highlight! On Bandcamp Day, Bandcamp.com waives their revenue share, which means more of your money goes directly to the artists you support. Supporting artists directly helps them pay rent, buy food, tour, record albums, and raise money for causes they care about. There’s something on Bandcamp for everyone, in every genre, and at every budget. Some artists even set their prices to pay-what-you-can on Bandcamp Day so go find something, add it to your wishlist, and on Friday morning you’ll be ready to support.

Here are the two albums in my Bandcamp basket right now:

1. Lucy MacNeil from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Angel Whispers
2. Heather MacIsaac from Antigonish, Nova Scotia, The Moon’s Daughter

Keep reading to find out why.

Lucy Macneil, Angel Whispers

First up, let me tell you about Lucy MacNeil’s 2024 solo release Angels Whisper. I was so lucky to meet MacNeil at The Gaelic College in St. Anns, Cape Breton last summer and she is as delightful as her voice on this recording. The album is filled with songs and fiddle tunes from the Cape Breton, Irish, and Scottish traditions. Listening is an hour well spent – or put it on repeat. I’m sure I will.

Stand out tracks for me: Sally Gardens

Lucy MacNeil brings the sad in buckets to Sally Gardens, this beautiful poem by/reconstructed by William Butler Yeats.

The song-poem tells the story of lost love:

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

I’ve heard this tune at plenty of Irish sessions, but I’d never heard the lyrics before. (Clearly there are gaps in my education.) Has that every happened to you with a trad tune? You hear it as a fiddle tune or as a song, and then one day it comes together? That tune you know has lyrics and a beautiful, melancholy story? Or the song you know is popular with the pipers? That’s how it was for me hearing Sally Gardens. I’m so happy to have the-sadness-that-is-this-song back in my life again.

The Crowd Pleaser: Radio Sweethearts

I think Radio Sweethearts will come to mind anytime I move furniture out of the way to dance – like the couple does at the beginning of this song. To me, that’s a dancing highlight, when you just can’t wait for a square dance – you need to get to the dancing here and now. Get that furniture out of the way and let’s go!

“She was pretty, he was tall
He placed the furniture next to the wall
They closed their eyes, the stars shone bright
The radio sweethearts waltzed all night.”

long exhale in starry-eyed…

This song tells the story of the singer’s parents who danced together all their lives and “are waltzing still.” The music is an easy breezy waltz that will be great on the dance floor. MacNeil sings the couple into vision, convincing me she knows the pair in the story and she brings to life the scene of them dancing at home, at the hall, and now in her dreams.
This track is nominated for the 2025 East Coast Music Awards Traditional release of the year.

Powerful use of a field recording: Moments We Remember

The last track on the album, Moments We Remember, is a beautiful fiddle piece with layers, both musical and sentimental. MacNeil is a fabulous fiddler and her ornaments on this track enrich without overpowering the melody. As the tune is ending, keep listening because at the very very end, you’ll hear a field recording that becomes even more moving when you understand its significance. When I asked MacNeil about it, she replied that her late mother started singing this song as her dementia progressed. MacNeil included it on the album as a way to remember her. The song was about Cape Breton, but MacNeil didn’t recognize it. One day when they were out on the deck taking in the day, MacNeil’s mother started to sing it again and MacNeil was able to record this verse of longing for the fair Cape Breton shores. Her father remembers that they first heard the song back in Ottawa sung by Stan Ryan. The album Angel Whispers is dedicated to MacNeil’s mother, Jean (MacKenzie) MacNeil, who passed away in 2023. It’s a beautiful way to honour the person and the tradition.

I can’t go without mentioning that MacNeil won two awards at the 2025 Canadian Folk Music Awards: Traditional Singer of the Year and Traditional Album of the Year for Angels Whisper. With Angels Whisper, MacNeil makes her debut as a solo artist, but she’ll be known to many listeners as part of the family supergroup The Barra MacNeils.

Find Angels Whisper on Bandcamp here: https://lucymacneil.bandcamp.com

Heather Maciaac’s The Moon’s Daughter

My second pick for May 2025 Bandcamp Day is Heather MacIsaac’s The Moon’s Daughter.

Get it here: https://heathermacisaac.bandcamp.com

This is an extremely danceable album. There isn’t a track on it that didn’t get my toes tapping and catch me wiggling in my seat. I’ll bet the café-goers around me were jealous.

I had the pleasure of hearing Heather MacIsaac on the pipes up close and in person in 2024 when she joined Mary Beth & The Two Bradleys for a set at the Antigonish Heritage Museum. I’m so glad she’s put out an album now to make it easier for me to support such a fabulous musician.

Released in April 2025, this is MacIsaac’s first solo album and she composed every track on it. I am in awe. I love pipes and no joke, MacIsaac does too. If you are also a fan of Highland pipes, small pipes, and/or whistles, you will find something here.

Track 1: Kito’s Fancy / Director of Confusion / Hector’s Slippers

This album gets right to the point by opening up with a snappy track, Kito’s Fancy. Accompanied by two east coast all-stars: Mary Beth Carty’s driving guitar and Mac Morin’s piano swing, I struggled to stay in my chair. omg so good.

Track 2: Finnie’s Lullaby / Allan the Moon / Shelly’s Request

Finnie’s Lullaby  is the album’s first taste of whistle and is another great piece for dancing. Is this theme MacIsaac’s background as a dancer shining through? I’m excited to try step-dancing to a whistle track. It’s the perfect moderate tempo to showcase some tidy steps.

I did not intend to write a track-by-track commentary, but next, please let me say something about track three…

Track 3: There for Me

There For Me is one of the two original songs on the album. It opens with a 4-note airy piano phrase that gives me goosebumps and I love it. And when MacIsaac starts singing – her voice – omg. The lower reach of her vocal range and how she uses that at the end of the musical phrase creates a combo that is absolutely chef’s kiss and I cannot get enough. Those sweet piano notes from the opening return at the end and MacIsaac finishes it off the way it started. MacIsaac is a great talent and an expert in her craft. This album will be on repeat for me and Bandcamp day is a great opportunity to support her.

Find The Moon’s Daughter here: https://heathermacisaac.bandcamp.com