Mixing tradition and the contemporary with a transportive, striking sound and delivery, ancient, emotional elegiac folk numbers are revived and revitalised in this stirring, stylish debut by Irish musicians Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody (from the bands Landless and Lankum respectively), produced by John ‘Spud’ Murphy, who produced all of Lankum’s albums. The Whole Town Knows, for example (a Ray Lynam & Philomena Begley track), was originally written about cheating hearts, but restlessly thunderous drums and drone sounds and strong melody, is also transformed into a bigger context of scandal: “It talks about how we can't go on living this way, which became a metaphor for the climate crisis and the general destruction of the planet,” explain the band. Opener Adieu Lovely Erin “tells the true story of William Hill, a forger from Belfast who was transported to Australia in 1826,” with a video animated by Ruth Clinton, visiting some iconic Irish landscapes as well as a few of the band's former Dublin haunts. Another link between past and present, time and place, comes on the title track setting a familiar tale of betrayal and jealousy: “This song is about seeing your fella on the dance floor with another woman except it's 1879. The video, directed by Ruth & Cormac, was filmed in Las Vegas and Sligo.” Bury Me Not meanwhile, on which Clinton’s voice particularly shines, “is about a young sailor whose dying wish (not to be buried at sea) is ignored. Written in 1839, and originally titled The Ocean Buried, our rendition comes from a mingling of different versions, including the cowboy version, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” The slow, gentle Lorene, this time sung solo by MacDiarmada, is an epistolary tale of missing someone, and the despair of unanswered letters, which channels Chantal Akerman’s News From Home. Beautiful work, variously profound, melancholy, delicate, visceral and vital, a fabulous addition to the Lankum releases, reaching into the past and reverberating into the present. Out on River Lea Recordings.
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