MUSIC: Kila bring Christmas to the Button Factory

Kíla have announced the dates for their annual Winter Tour.

The highlight is in Dublin’s Button Factory on December 22 where Kíla always bring a Christmas sack full of surprises with them.

This year should prove no different.

The Kíla winter tour, by now an annual event, is a way for the band to celebrate a busy last 12 months of fantastic concerts at home and abroad.

They have also been working on a fascinating TG4 project – 12 songs, 12 singers and 12 animations by Cartoon Saloon called ‘Cúl an Tí’.

And, in a bid to capture their high-octane, funky brand of trad live, they have been working on their latest album ‘Kíla Alive’ which will be available for concert goers on this tour until the official release (along with a bonus DVD) next March.

Covering all the provinces, the tour begins in Ulster in Belfast’s Limelight 2.

It then takes the band all the way around the country before it finally ends in Leinster in the Mermaid Theatre in Wicklow’s east coast town of  Bray.

From the mardi-gras excitement of playing to 10,000 people at the Rio Loco Festival in Toulouse to 200 people at the Bloomsday celebrations in Tinahely’s Courthouse, Kíla have been bringing their energetic, creative and wildly exuberant music to summer festivals all around Europe.

Kíla are still riding high on the success of last year’s album release ‘Suas Síos’ (which is due to be released in Australia very soon) and their remarkable writing of music for Cartoon Saloon’s Oscar nominated films ‘The Secret of Kells’ and ‘Song of the Sea’ and the Emmy nominated documentary ‘Ireland’s Secret River’.

Kíla are no strangers to the heady heights of the music world, having produced 10 critically acclaimed studio albums since their first one – the quirky named ‘Handel’s Fantasy’ that first set ears twitching some 20 years ago.

In 2008 they recorded the song ‘The Ballad of Ronnie Drew’ with U2, The Dubliners, Glen Hansard and a host of other artists.

The song spent two weeks on top of the Irish charts and was later included on a U2.com-only album of collaborations that U2 recorded with other artists entitled ‘Duals’ (2012).

When not wowing audiences around Europe’s festival circuit Kíla have teamed up again with Cartoon Saloon for a remarkable exploration of Irish music.

Working with 12 different singers Kíla are producing 12 songs (original and traditional) for which 12 different directors will animate 12 videos.

Singers already recorded include Lisa Hannigan, Mundy, Mary Coughlan and John Spillane.

The other singers chosen from wildly different fields will include a number of surprises.