Caoineag – Celtic traditions meet electronic music

Drawing its name from the mythical spirit, Caoineag (pronounced kwee-nak) combines Scottish folklore with deep house and progressive trance. The Caoineag is a banshee-like figure whose sorrowful cries foretell death and tragedy. With its entrancing melody and its Gaelic influences, this song sounds like a mournful cry in the open – atmospheric, haunting, mystic, yet beautiful in its own way.

Caoineag is one of the song with the weirdest background stories ever. A challenge in a songwriting forum is about writing a song based on comments. People wanted me to write a song with a piano, 80s synth, a hurdy-gurdy and weird intervals. Challenge accepted. My first idea has been synth wave, but as I already struggled with creating the typical beat, I fiddled around with a synthetic hurdy-gurdy and its drone notes that are typically tuned in fifths. This had such an entrancing quality, that I ended up writing a deep house / progressive trance song. Of course, the mystical and mournful sound of the hurdy-gurdy inspired me to have a look into Celtic traditions and spirits. I read about the Caoineag, a female spirit similar to a banshee, named after the word weeper. She is normally invisible and foretells death in her clan by lamenting in the night close to areas of water. My song feels like a lament and something about it is super tragic, which is why I decided to name it after the Caoineag.

This is my first official release after 8 years of publishing hiatus. I have big plans for 2025, let’s get it on. You can listen to my song on all streaming services, and of course on YouTube:

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