The Gnomes

The Gnomes play an energetic blend of Celtic and World Music featuring Cathy Clapser Torch, Phil Edmonds, Otis Read, Peter Breen, and Ron Schmitt. All the band members have performed and recorded with several Rhode Island ensembles over the years and are well-known throughout the region. Instrumentation includes: fiddle, whistle, accordion, guitar, bass, percussion, vocals. . Their music features a wide range of styles - Celtic, Scandinavian, eastern European, and original

The band clearly dips into a well of life experience to cull such convincing performances of Scandinavian, Eastern European, and general World Music. The Gnomes are made up of Irish-born Phil Edmonds on button accordion and whistles, acclaimed violinist Cathy Clasper-Torch, percussionist Ron Schmitt, staple on the New England scene bassist Peter Breen, and producer/musician extraordinaire Otis Read on guitar. Though these musicians regularly turn up on projects with Joyce Katzberg, Atwater-Donnelly, and other regional regulars, To The Dance Floor serves as the assembled lineup's first recorded project.

Though many of the traditional songs herein contain instantly recognizable classic melodies, it's the original compositions by Phil Edmonds that spotlight the proficiency of this unusually gratifying group. The title track is, as described on the CD's liner notes, a fusion of Irish and Cape Verdean-influenced music.

The Gnomes
To The Dance Floor – Review by Arthur Ketchen, Celtic Beat Magazine.

There are some works of art and music that just stand out, not by their ability to sensationalize, or to excite, but merely on a masterful and unique vision conveyed with superb craftsmanship. The Gnomes(formerly the Lucky Band) release To The Dance Floor is one such example. Here is a love of the music as music. Whether playing to an audience or by themselves what the members of The Gnomes do is way above and beyond the call of just good music.

To The Dance Floor is for starters the Gnomic meld of Celtic(Irish, Highland Scots), Scandinavian(Finnish particularly), Eastern European and Latino styles and traditions,but that is just the beginning. The music here is by turns gentle, ecstatic, sad and elegaic, and always intriguing. The Gnomes don't need sturm and drang to draw you in, they just draw you in by the beauty of what they do. Their intensity is not that of screaming guitars, it is far more powerful