Of Pattern and Purpose
Trust Me I’m a Thief

Neil O’Connor has been very active in the Irish music scene over the last decade or so: he started in the 90s as a member of Loretta, then played with indie-popsters Palomine, but is probably best known as one-fourth of the post-rock combo The Connect 4 Orchestra and current keyboardist with one of the country’s most acclaimed indie bands, The Redneck Manifesto.

Despite all of this band-based work, O’Connor has found plenty of time to keep his solo project, Somadrone, going. Well, ‘solo’ in the sense that he’s the primary creative force; his live shows and recorded work still feature plenty of collaborators. Even so, the modus operandi is always the same: keyboards, electronics and sundry instrumentation from O’Connor, with a few friends providing a bit of guitar, extra percussion and strings. The end result is ambient mood music, vaguely druggy and trancelike (as you’d expect from something calling itself ‘Somadrone’).

His latest album, Of Pattern and Purpose, is more of the same. Well, once you get past the first song ‘City Night Driver’, which uses vocals to rather negligible effect, and is the least interesting song of the bunch. Luckily, the rest of the album is all-instrumental, and improves as it goes along: highlights include ‘Cover of Night’, which puts white noise and strings over a subtly funky beat; the pastoral trip-hop of ‘Bright Light, White Water’; ‘Tumble down’, which has something of a mid-90s electronica sound to it; and ‘Phrase and Fable’, whose chugging motorik percussion gives it a gentle krautrock feel.

But the best (and sadly, shortest) track on the album is ‘San Soleil’. It’s possible that it’s named (albeit slightly misspelled) after Chris Marker’s 1982 film; after all, Somadrone once did a live soundtrack to the French director’s 1962 masterpiece La Jeteé, so we can presume that O’Connor’s a fan. But regardless of the title’s source, it’s an excellent little piece, built over a tambura-like drone that just drifts and pulses for three minutes. Like the film it may or may not be named after, simple and straightforward, but highly effective.

Of Pattern and Purpose isn’t particularly innovative – this type of music has been done countless times before (and one might justifiably wonder if it really needs to be done again) – but it’s accomplished, well put-together and quite listenable, and anyone who likes their electronica mild and atmospheric would probably enjoy this.