The Widening Gyre

The Widening Gyre is the twelfth studio album by Irish folk music group Altan and their eleventh studio album of original material, released in February 2015 on the Compass Records label. It was released to critical acclaim. This is the first studio album of original material to be released by Altan in almost 3 years since the release of Gleann Nimhe – The Poison Glen in 2012. This is also the first Altan album to feature new band member Martin Tourish on accordion. In January 2015, Altan revealed that The Widening Gyre would be the name of their new album to be released in Ireland on 20 February 2015, in the UK on 23 February 2015 and in the US on 24 February 2015. And as they borrowed the title from "The Second Coming", one of W. B. Yeats poems, the first Irishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Altan's official website published a presentation of their new studio album The Widening Gyre giving many details about the new album: the new musical direction taken by the band, the album recording process and the participation of numerous guest musicians as well as the titles of some of the new tracks. The very same day, on their "Widening Gyre" iTunes page, Altan revealed the titles of the 14 tracks from their new studio album and released them for sale. On 27 January 2015, on their "Widening Gyre" Compass Records page, Altan made available short snippets of their new tracks