Shadows of Things

Iarla Ó Lionáird and Liam Ó Maonlaí.

New albums of traditional song are always welcome; new albums promising a ‘world music’ sensibility in their approach to Irish musical culture can be a worry. But with albums from artists of the calibre of Iarla Ó Lionáird (Invisible Fields, Realworld Records) and Liam Ó Maonlaí (Rian, Rian Records) there’s always the hope that the world they create will have heart and integrity. Each artist has an impressive pedigree: Liam Ó Maonlaí traces his singing style back via his mother to her people ‘from Galway and further west.’ Iarla Ó Lionáird is the grand-nephew of the great singer and song-giver, Elizabeth Cronin. ‘Seán Ó Riada was the wizard for me,’ says Ó Maonlaí. ‘In our home, his live concert in the Gaiety fed our days and my imagination. Opened a window of possibility for me.’ Both singers have a passionate commitment to tradition and the opening out of tradition, to the Irish language and the richness of its songs, to the notion of singing as vocation, an art at once universal and local, deeply personal, even private, a spiritual art which can heal both listener and singer, transcending the individual singer to become part of a cosmic whole. Each has a deep knowledge of the singing traditions of Ireland but both have also consistently explored other song traditions and styles and have been strong advocates of experimentation and innovation – Ó Lionáird with the Afro-Celt Sound System, Ó Maonlaí with the Hothouse Flowers and in many collaborations around the world.

Despite the connections and similarities, these are two markedly different albums: Ó Maonlaí striving for a raw, one-man-session sound – voice, string, percussion, keyboards and wind – producing a heavily worked simplicity; Ó Lionáird mixing in electronic sound and atmospherics, making a multi-layered soundscape which manages to achieve a kind of timelessness.

Invisible Fields explores voice, music and memory, invisible (but audible) fields of connectedness. At times his voice sounds a clear echo of his great aunt, Elizabeth Cronin – especially on two outstanding tracks inspired by her singing, ‘Cu-cu-in’ and ‘I’m Weary of Lying Alone’. It’s as if he’s standing on the hearthstone of her house and the same fire warms his voice. There are ten tracks in all, two songs and a conceptual piece of words and music written by Ó Lionáird and Kieran Lynch, four traditional songs and three songs adapted from existing texts, one a poem by Seán Ó Riordáin. The new songs are impressive and moving, strong, delicate and highly accomplished in the unity of writing, delivery and arrangement. ‘Aurora’, based on Ó Riordáin’s ‘Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim’ is a fine delivery of a great poem, while ‘Tuirimh Mhic Fhinin Dhuibh’ (Lament for Black Finn’s Son) is magnificent. Liam Ó Muirthile is credited as having introduced Ó Lionáird to the ‘Laoithe Fiannuidheachta’ text which inspired the track ‘Oisin’s Dream’, an oddly successful blending of experimental sound and original text. ‘Scathán na Beatha’ (Still Life), the last track on the album, features a good many of the Ó Lionáird family in a wash of word and sound which builds towards a calm silence at the end. There’s a resonance and fade from the album like the old telegraph wires that sang on the country wind.

There’s no text or note for this last track or for ‘An Buachaillín Bán’ and three of the other songs. One of these is ‘Táimse Im’Chodladh’, sung originally by Peg Ó Donoghue of Baile Mhic Íre and collected by A.M. Freeman in 1920. Another quibble: the note about Peg Ó Donoghue reproduced in the sleeve notes for this album (presumably from Houseman’s journal) is almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass. A shame, because it seems deeply relevant to what Ó Lionáird is trying to say.

Rian
There are similar problems with information – or lack of it – on Liam Ó Maonlaí’s Rian (a trace, a track, the shadow of a thing). It’s a mix of unaccompanied singing, dramatic arrangements and performance of song and sung prayer; and fairly straight-forward delivery of traditional tunes – reels and jigs. Ó Maonlaí’s own artwork and hand-written notes are striking; a mixture of the naïve and the commercial but with a vivid, saving grace.

There are fourteen tracks in all, a generous helping these times – but after repeated listening one can’t help feeling that a little less might have been more. ‘This work, to the best of my ability, is imperfect,’ writes Ó Maonlaí, ‘The perfection comes between the one singing and the listener.’ There are seven songs on Rian: Ó Riada’s versions of ‘Ár nAthair’ (The Lord’s Prayer) and ‘Ag Críost an Síol’; and five great Gaelic songs. Ó Maonlaí sings with passion, giving the prayers a powerful dramatic spareness and the songs an expressive lyricism. Like Ó Lionáird, his Irish is a joy to hear: indeed, this is a distinguishing aspect of both albums, the joyful expression and relishing of language.

Only five tracks are given any note by way of information, and this usually a one or two line summary with nothing at all on the origins or history of the songs. Some of the notes induce a slight unease and make you wonder who or where the album is intended for: the one sentence on ‘Iníon an Fhaoit ón nGleann’ tells us that White’s daughter may have been beyond the singer’s reach ‘due to class pre-occupations’ and explicates – ‘due to colonial occupation the people in Ireland were divided’. I accept that we may be abandoning our history with alarming speed but this reads like Irish history-lite for enthusiastic Americans.

Ó Maonlaí’s rendition of the great transportation song ‘Na Connerys’ is curiously deadpan (in contrast to the prayers and to Eilín Ní Bheaglaoich’s version on her album Míle Dath), choosing not to pick up on the passion and the venom of the text. His note tells us that ‘The Connery brothers were framed in court and exiled to New South Wales. This [song] tells of the dismay and anger at the unfair trial of the respected family.’ I think the story may be more complex; still, it’s great to hear anyone singing and recording this song these times.

The striving for a supposedly authentic, almost live sound weighs down the tunes on the album. The playing is good, often light and lively – but the pauses for breath on the whistle tunes seem almost accentuated, as if to prove that the music is being played live. The problem is that the music isn’t live, so the strings on the unnamed reels of track 10 sound added-on, contrived. Tom Billy’s jig seems to be aiming for the raw immediacy of a tinker’s campfire, whistle and bodhrán beat speeding each other. But again the nagging feeling that it’s not real – in contrast to the lovely simplicity of ‘Seoladh na nGamhna’.

There are no notes at all for the tunes and no note on Ó Riada, surely an oversight given that many of the people buying this CD may not be familiar with his life and work. Yes there’s the internet and people can always look there if they’re interested – but the internet can’t be made into a God-of-all-we-omit substitute. A note about the album on Ó Maonlaí’s website says that Rian is ‘a loving and intuitive look at ancient Irish musical heritage with a world culture sensibility’; surely all culture is world culture – but that’s another debate. Justin Adams plays guitar and ngoni, Caroline Dale plays cello while Ó Maonlaí contributes drum, whistles, keyboards, ‘everything else you might hear’ (I think that includes didgeridoo) and all backing vocals.

A note on the back of Rian seems apt for both these albums and singers: ‘When a music is simplified to one voice it is easy to see how we are related to people all over … It is so important to listen, again and again and again and again. And sing.’

 

Published on 1 May 2006

Vincent Woods is a writer and broadcaster. He co-edited The Turning Wave: Poems and Songs of Irish Australia.

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