Beautiful, evocative, poetic and profound original folk numbers with a traditional style by Irish brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn in their fourth LP, recorded live in a Galway house with acclaimed producer Philip Weinrobe (Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker), and vivid lyrical themes of home and memory. “All these songs have addresses,” says co-frontman Diarmuid. “They’re about specific locations and specific people.” The brothers cite fiction writers George Saunders and Claire Keegan as particular inspirations on this record. While the sound is authentic and traditional, their lyrics are also have a modern resonance. The Flood is inspired by the housing crisis, especially by, for example, the high costs of living in Dublin, and by contrast looking back at earlier Dublin days and a squatters’ community (“We were the young ones, wild things playing / Barefoot, dancing in the concrete dust / Swimming in a river of smoke and serotonin / Our forgotten city of glitter and rust”) a lively, fiddle-filled number with ensemble of players including Shahzad Ismaily, Alain Mc Fadden, Caimin Gilmore, Kate Ellis, Sam Amidon, Romain Bly and Louise Gaffney, with a video showing suited businessmen living in a tent, getting up to go to work, then a change expressed in the movement of dancer Jimmy Southward. That higher tempo track comes in contrast to the slow, drone-based and very atmospheric Gravity: “We're drawn like we're coming home / Same heat, same naked frame / Held on by a string / Gravity that pulls us in.”
Most of the album has more standard folk tempo, with various finely crafted, acoustic finger-picking by the multi-instrumental talents of the brothers along with their close vocal harmonies. Danny is a poignant, elegiac tale with cello, synthesizer, and harmonium, of a tragic childhood friend from their home town of Carlow, who, Diarmuid says, “didn’t get a fair run. I wanted to celebrate him.” The brothers sing: “He ran like he could feel / Something snapping at the heels / Of his worn out shoes / Too fast to follow / Too hot to hold / Too good to lose … No fear of repercussions / He'd only crack a grin / He'd outrun his shadow before they'd catch up with him.” The slow, beautiful Mayfly also points to another person who with a live-fast-die-young lifestyle: “Mary got away though / Went off chasing rainbows/ Never made it to the layby / Living like a mayfly.” Every track is filled with poignant recollections, such as the love song Young Again (“Look back through photographs / The years pass in a flash”). Opener On Sitric Road includes fond images of recollection: “And I remember that first evening / Singing John Prine till dawn / Round the iron stove on Sitric Road / With my big wool coat on,” and among other highlights is Where The Heart Lies, with beautifully delicate finger-picking and soft rippling piano, summoning up cosiness, comfort and pleasure, referencing singing and dancing to having a cup of tea as the chords return to the home key: “The drop before the chorus, the breath before we rise / Remembering the dance together, this is where the heart lies … This is where I lay down, where my kettle boils / This is where my mind sighs, this is where the heart lies.” Gorgeous. Out on the Rough Trade Records label River Lea Recordings.
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