Post Description

Folk, Irish. Zeer de moeite waard.

Landless are: Lily Power, Méabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinéad Lynch.
The Irish quartet sings centuries old ballads as well as more recently penned folk songs. Sometimes unaccompanied and at times with subtle instrumentation, their vocally rich music is dark and patient; spellbinding and gorgeous. Four powerful voices weave tender yet disquieting harmonies on a second album that honours bold women

Vocal harmony is in the dense weave of so much traditional music, and it becomes a startling, golden thread in Landless’s second album. Named after an Irish word that can mean a cloak for protection, a breastplate and a hymn, Lúireach is a collection of 10 sublime songs, many of them about bold women. It also showcases four female singers (Méabh Meir, Lily Power, Ruth Clinton and Sinéad Lynch), whose voices seem to rise from the sacra of their spines, emerging from their bodies in heavenly flight or heavy drones.

As ancient, deep and moving as an unusual early music instrument, Meir’s tones are the first that we hear, on The Newry Highwayman. She is joined by her bandmates in tender support, plus Alex Borwick’s soft, sighing trombone, string drones played by Lankum’s Cormac Mac Diarmada, and the growing dread that’s such a signature flourish of John “Spud” Murphy’s production (for Lankum and others). Then comes a sweet, unusual version of folk standard Blackwaterside, learned from Irish Traveller Paddy Doran, showcasing the group’s similar facility and respect for lightness and darkness.

So many other treasures abound. Lúireach Bhríde, bolstered by all four women singing powerfully, is a beautiful original, commissioned by the RTÉ folk awards as a piece revisiting the pre-Christian stories of Irish goddess Brigid. Then comes Clinton’s Conacher pipe organ introduction to Death and the Lady, sounding precise and profound; the clavichord on The Hag (Lynch’s setting of a 17th-century Robert Herrick poem) adding delicacy to the tale of a woman “astride / this night for to ride”; Meir’s shruti box and singing bowls sounding impossibly loving on Slovakian closer Ej Husári. Long-term Celtic music fans should flock to them – they’re a deliciously doomier Clannad – while devotees of Ireland’s current, brilliant scene should also respond to their stunning intensity.

Lúireach is an album of quiet power, soaked in tradition but finding new and exciting ways to present these remarkable songs, songs that are full of melancholy, love, death and mystery. Lúireach rewards your close attention.

Tracks:
01. The Newry Highwayman
02. Blackwaterside
03. Lúireach Bhríde
04. The Fisherman's Wife
05. The Grey Selkie of Sule Skerry
06. Death and the Lady
07. The Hag
08. My Lagan Love
09. The Wounded Hussar
10. Ej Husári

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu3HZEr_NAE