Reviews of I can hear you Smiling
“Josephine Marsh is a musician with a highly personalised and distinctive style. Her debut solo recording reveals remarkable insight and sensitivity towards the core of the tradition. She looks for the deepest feelings in music and has a way of bringing about a mood of great happiness and uplift.
Even though she plays in a style that is both personal and at the same time distilled from the musical influences of East Clare, she refuses to be constrained or defined by anything other than her own eclectic musical tastes.
This new recording brings together an ensemble of remarkable musicians who have pulled together a wide range of influences to create a seamless whole. There is a difference between recording music because it represents one's own musical taste and recording a diverse collection of music in order to appeal to a wide-ranging audience. One of these options is courageous and daring and the other is artistically compromised. There are no compromises here: from the musical compositions of JJ Cale, Stan Rogers and Eileen O Brien to the music of Josephine herself, everything on this recording has a consistency of taste and artistic integrity. As producer, PJ Curtis has ensured that this album has captured the true essence of live performance. All the musicians here are masters on their respective instruments. On this recording they have pooled their resources to create a singular musical vision, which makes this both a great recording and a great Band”.
Martin Hayes.
IRISH TIMES WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 5, 2001 THE TICKET
THE JOSEPHINE MARSH BAND ****
I can hear you smiling
Tiptoeing across a remarkable rake of tunes, east Clare accordionist Josephine Marsh and her band elevate subtlety to high art with this deliciously titled album. Marsh’s box playing is positively balletic in pace and weight. Enwrapping rather than bombarding the tunes, she never fails to afford them top billing. Magnificently supported by double bass, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar (with grinning harmonica peeping in betimes), this is a collection to relish in the retelling. Marsh’s own tunes nestle cosily alongside traditional pieces plucked from east Clare, Brittany and beyond. The Egg set is as fine a sample of egoless ensemble playing, and while the three songs at first jar, they gradually insinuate themselves into the whole like prodigal sons who take time to find their place in the clan. Peerless perfection. www.tradcentral.com
Siobhan Long
PJ Curtis, record producer/author and RTE 1, Lyric FM radio presenter has this to say of her band:
" Over the last two years Josephine Marsh and her band have established themselves as one of the most exciting traditional ensembles around. As a performing unit they play Irish traditional music with great passion, purity of style and stunning virtuosity. As far as I'm concerned this is truly a band with a great future and it's only a matter of time before their praises will be sung wherever good traditional, world or acoustic music is played and appreciated."
PJ Curtis