‘‘Afore Ye Go’ is, at its heart, an album about friendship, family, distance and return – the musical conversation between Donegal and the Highlands carried forward by two musicians who know both places deeply. And though it took the better part of a decade to come together, the timing feels just right.’ – The Inishowen Independent

Former flatmates in Glasgow in the late 2010s, Highland piper and flautist, Hamish Hepburn and Donegal fiddler, Jack Houston, belatedly started recording some music in 2025 while Hamish was on flying visits home from New Zealand. Early on, Jack’s mother joked we should call the album ‘Afore Ye Go’. We threw a dozen potential album names around in the months that followed but none of them seemed to fit.

In the same year, Jack lost his grandmother Kathleen, and Hamish lost his grandfather, James. The first tune on the CD, written by Hamish for his grandfather, was released in time for him to hear it on his favourite radio station at home in Mallaig. It is preceded by a short clip of his wife Jessie singing ‘Mo Rùn Geal Dileas’. The last track is a song dedicated to Jack’s grandmother Kathleen, followed by a short clip of ‘Luí na Gréine thar an Inis’, a waltz he wrote for her, which she got to hear on her favourite radio station at home in Inishowen.

Many of the tracks on this album look at the sharing of music despite distance; between Donegal and Scotland, between far away friends, and between generations. When putting this music together at the end of the year, we thought ‘Afore Ye Go’ was as good a title as any.