Mairearad Green and Mike Vass
A.D.A.M
Mairearad Green and Mike Vass have written together as A.D.A.M for more than a decade. The name stands for “a day a month”, the rule they set themselves.
Recorded Achnahaird, Ullapool, Plockton and Gloworm
The duo
Mairearad Green is a multi-instrumentalist and visual artist who grew up on the Coigach peninsula. On their records she plays smallpipes, Highland pipes, accordion and piano, and sings; Mike plays fiddle and synthesiser and does the programming and sound design.
Their first record together, A Day A Month (2017), was traditional tunes on accordion and fiddle, recorded in a croft house in Achnahaird and on Mike’s boat. Mairi Laghach followed in 2020.
Everybody Wants to Be Like Mary (2024) takes nine Gaelic song melodies, transcribed from tradition bearers and archive recordings, and sets them for pipes with electronic production. The title comes from Mary Morrison of Barra, whose canntaireachd they found on Tobar an Dualchais, and Mairearad painted the artwork. It put them on the shortlist for Composer of the Year at the 2024 Scots Trad Music Awards. They played the music at Celtic Connections that February and at Ceòl Cholasa on Colonsay in September.
The Sound of Sleat (2025) is their version of Donald MacKinnon’s four-part reel, recorded in Plockton for the Torabhaig distillery’s Legacy Series.
Records
Photographs
Cuttings
A line from each piece. Where the full piece is online, it is linked.
Bright Young Folk
“An appropriate title from the latest composers to mine the rich vein of Scottish trad-electronica and come up clutching treasure.”
Irish Music Magazine
…the music itself is intriguing, oddly compelling, raw and mysterious simultaneously.”
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