Matt Molloy and Friends
Music At Matt Molloy's;
Various Artists
Lament
(both Realworld/Caroline)
The political, social and economic conditions in Ireland have been well documented and well ignored through the years, and a certain fatality and simplicity comes into every conversation about the island. We speak of "the troubles" and know well of what we speak. We also hear "the music," and it means so much more than a few notes on a fiddle. On these two albums, we hear of the music and the troubles, in a sublime simplicity and a rapturous joy. Lament is a stunning piece of work compiled by Nigel Rolfe and Brian Masterson. Each of the 14 songs are a solo lamentation for instrument or voice for one of Ireland's great performers, dedicated to the loss and anguish of "the troubles." These songs can be stark and shocking, like singer Allana O'Kelly's wordless vocal, "One Breath." or it can be resonant and funereal like the accordion piece that follows by Tony MacMahon. Pianist Michael O Suilleabhain lends a romantic "Plunkett," and Christy Moore an evocative performance that returns the beauty to the much-maligned "Danny Boy." Each track is simplicity incarnate, a call to the spirits of life in the face of devastation.
Music At Matt Molloy's discovers and displays the other side of the same coin, the joy found in that same simplicity. Flute player and pub owner Molloy explains that "the music is more than just sitting down and playing a tune. It's the talk and the drink and the humour" that brings it alive, and this recording is as close to capturing it as you'll come without a plane ticket. You can almost smell a pint or two as the music spins out of this disk, and the fiddlers and accordion squeezers pull on a note and the pipers wheeze their droning tune. Young musicians and old converge to share the reels, jigs and songs of a dozen generations. Playing beside Chieftain Molloy are Arty McGlynn (guitar), Noel O'Grady (bouzouki), a marvelous solo vocal by Mick O'Grady, and a dozen more folks in groupings from duets to octet, keeping the all important spirit of the music alive. There are plenty of hokey beer-drinking bands and thrashing revolutionaries with electric guitars, but to understand the music of the troubles and the island that contains them both, the artists and their songs on these two disks are essential listening.
Celtic, Irish, Scottish and Bristish Isles Menu
all material copyright 1998 RootsWorld