Tom Challenger

Stephen Davis Unit: The Gleaming World

by Ian Patterson
February 27, 2025

Belfast-based drummer-percussionist Stephen Davis' debut album for 577 Records takes its name from a line in a Seamus Heaney poem. The Irish Nobel laureate drew deeply on his rural surroundings, and, as these song titles suggest, so too has Davis. In late 2023, Davis spent time as a musician-in-residence at The Courthouse, Tinahely, in County Wicklow--an Improvised Music Company scheme that provides musicians with the support, time and space necessary to follow their artistic muse. Davis tapped into the natural ...