The band Nantathren was founded 1999 by Martin, the lead-singer, and Catriona, a fiddle player. Soon after they were joined by a drummer called Miriam and started out to build up a repertoire. Before their first concert ever Catriona left the group and they were left at two musicians. Later that year Martin asked Roger, whom he knew from school, to join the group with his bass guitar, so they formed a nice little 3-piece combo with voice, drums, bass and guitar.
But that wasn't folk-ish enough and they went on looking for a fiddle. After a while they were successful at that, too, although "find" might be a slight understatement. Martin got to know Mirjam who played the saxophone at that time but couldn't hide for long that she had played the violin until a while before, so he persuaded her to join Nantathren with both these instruments. Then Miriam "the drum" started singing, too, so their group now consisted of two voices, a guitar, bass, violin, saxophone, drums and guitar.
It was like this that they played their first concert at a wedding party and also showed their talent at (yet only) a few other concerts. Because the concerts weren't coming in dozens the group decided to put out a demo record to get noticed in the culture scene. To keep to their budget (they were all students at the time) they recorded twelve songs in only two Sundays and started putting together the cover design and what not for this demo themselves.
This whole thing took them quite some while, not the least because they were students, but also because at first the demo was supposed to be an old fashioned tape cassette (in the manner of many great Admiral James T. records, who was also the person to record their sound in the DALA Studios). After a long wait for the company to supply the tapes they figured out that this wouldn't work and opted for a CD, so they started to reshape the original designs to fit the new size.
In 2001 before it was finished, however, Martin went to Glasgow, Scotland, for something over 9 months (as a part of his studies) and left the group bereft of their lead vocals. While he was away the others improved their play on their instruments and Miriam the drum took up the tin whistle and the bodhran. Roger had already started a course in a music school before Martin left and perfected his bass playing there. Mirjam "the fiddle" decided to drop the saxophone in favour of improving her violin to fiddle playing (which is a difference not to underestimate). Besides that they also managed to get the demo CD finished by the end of that year.
In the beautiful, lively city of Glasgow Martin was not idle either. While turning to the good ales available in Scotland and at first being content with listening to music visiting pub concerts all over the town, he soon discovered a tremendous session in a small pub on Woodlands Road. The first time he was there he already got to know the "boss" of the session, Stef who was in charge who was going to start what next. In the manner of the very friendly and embracing Scots and especially Glaswegians, Martin was invited to join the session, and from that moment he took part actively in the folk scene in Glasgow. Sunday and Tuesday nights were reserved for the Uisgé Béatha session from then onwards where he got to know a lot of Scottish musicians, learned to love playing tunes and also got to know many more folk songs worth playing.
He brought back some songs none in Switzerland will ever have heard, because they were written by Scottish songwriters, and those tend to keep to the island. He got to know Ian Davison, one of the best songwriters in the place, as well as Clova, a fabulous folk group from Glasgow, who also write their own songs. Some songs of these people are now found in the repertoire of Nantathren, because the whole group is rather fond of them.
Something else Martin brought back with him from Glasgow was the Mandolin. In the Uisgé Béatha he got to know Phil who later became the boss of the session, and this man played the Mandolin so well, that Martin decided to try it, too. Admittedly the success in learning this instrument is rather limited, but the tunes he can play, he can play, and the songs he accompanies with the Mandolin are fair enough, as well. But the best thing is, that now the virus has passed on to Mirjam and she will start learning the Mandolin very soon.
When Martin came back from Scotland the CD was at last finished, and the group was again able to play some gigs, having now a demo they could send to the pubs and clubs. Their first concert after Martin's return was actually just three weeks after his arrival, at the Grienen open air, where they had played the year before, too, just before Martin left. The CD made it possible for them to play various gigs, but they were not completely satisfied with the disc.
It began to sound old and, after all, it was just a demo. Roger had made a lot of progress, thanks to his talent and to the school he attended, Miriam had taken up more instruments and Mirjam had also worked hard on her fiddle. Also their repertoire had now grown to more than three times what it was before and many of the songs on the demo had been sacked in favour of much better ones. So they decided to record a new CD and this time it was going to be more than just a demo.
Back in the DALA studios in early 2003 they took a full week to record 18 songs for their album. They had not yet decided on a name for it, nor spent many thoughts on the design, when the recording was finished and the CD had been mastered at the Gallus Tonstudios. When things were underway, photos had been taken and there was something like a cover design coming together, Miriam "the drum" left the group for personal reasons and a new commitment to rock music. This slowed the production of the CD down drastically. Having some concerts in the pipeline, the three remaining members had to rehearse hard to change the arrangements of all the songs to fit the new line-up without the drums.
Because Martin kept brining along new songs to play (traditional Folk is endlessly resourceful of good songs), the production of the CD basically came to a standstill in early 2004, yet it all was worth a little wait, after all. During the summer the design was completely changed in favour of a digi-pack instead of a conventional CD case, thus abandoning the idea of a CD booklet, improving the whole looks immensely. But also in another respect it was worthwhile waiting a little longer to finish the production. In September 2004, by mere chance, Roger found a label that was willing to promote and distribute our CD in all of Switzerland, which will make things much easier than it would have been doing all this themselves.