Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett – S/T
Real World – 11 October 2019
W.G. Sebald’s novel, or almost-novel, The Rings Of Saturn, may in time be considered the most important work of literature of the second half of the twentieth century. It is a thing of mystery, with as many interpretations as readers: it is about the place of the individual in collective history, and it is about how the human mind travels in tandem with and separate from the human body, and it is about our difficult but often transformative relationship with the natural world. As such it has had a massive, perhaps unparalleled influence on contemporary literature, from autofiction to nature writing to art criticism. Sebald’s influence on the written word is widely acknowledged, but his connection to other artforms, including music, is less frequently discussed.
On their first album as a duo, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett look to rectify that. They use The Rings Of Saturn as a jumping-off point from which they can explore many of the themes – time, memory, uncertainty – that concerned Sebald. The pair are both members of Irish/American folk band The Gloaming, for whom Bartlett plays the piano and Ó Raghallaig the hardanger d’amore (a custom made Norwegian instrument that comprises elements of the hardanger fiddle and the viola d’amore). So much for the facts. There is a wandering spirit at work in these nine mostly improvised instrumentals that belies the apparent simplicity of their creation.
In true Sebaldian fashion, their historic and narrative sweep is wide. And fittingly the manner of their recording is peregrinatory: the duo used studios in Mexico City, Bath and New York. Opening track Kestrel channels not just the bird but the flighty, doomed spirit of literary aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The minimal piano underpins a shifting fiddle melody that is at once melancholy and exulted, and the whole thing ends up as a musical equivalent of the ‘dapple-dawn-drawn falcon’ conjured by Gerard Manley Hopkins in The Windhover.
The magnificent, quietly epic Strange Vessels is a lesson in restraint and slow release. Bartlett’s improvised piano melodies fall into place with a sense of timing that is almost uncanny in its perfection. The feel of the piece owes more to Debussy or Chopin than to any common conception of folk music. But as the title (which is taken directly from The Rings Of Saturn) suggests, there is strangeness below the surface that is teased out by Ó Raghallaig’s bow.
All Good Things, by contrast, is briefer and folkier, but no less emotive. Where many fiddlers would pile it on thick if they stumbled on a melody like this, Ó Raghallaig uses the tune as a conduit for emotional expression. There is sympathy and softness and nostalgia and at times a little harshness too: it qualifies as folk music partly because it reflects the world at a particular time and in a particular place, but it also transcends that label by dint of its universality and the sheer airiness and openness of the arrangements. The space that both of these musicians allow their instruments is one of the things that sets them apart from their contemporaries.
Zona Rosa – named after the area in Mexico where it was recorded – is an exercise in musical interplay. Over nearly ten minutes the fiddle and piano dance slowly around each other, never quite meeting, almost like a conversation conducted entirely in love letters. The hint of dissonance in its final seconds is crushing. The shorter Wanderer is suffused in warmth and light, and towards its conclusion, Ó Raghallaig’s fiddle takes on a voice that is almost human in its expressiveness.
At nearly fifteen minutes, the wholly improvised Open Shelter is the longest and also the darkest piece on the album. It sways between minimalism, improvised jazz and the ambient works of Brian Eno or Harold Budd. It engulfs and beguiles, but to the credit of its creators, it is never difficult to listen to. While there is always an intellectual element to music like this, Bartlett and Ó Raghallaig’s grounding in vernacular and melodic music means that this album never compromises on its ability to convey a mood. Thankfully, it also steers well clear of the more anodyne excesses of neoclassicism.
There are jerky angles and odd juxtapositions strewn across the album, and they become more apparent with every new listen. We Thought We Knew is full of hops and swerves, while My Darling Asleep (the only traditional tune on the album) digresses from its point like a master storyteller. Percussive pinks and homely refrains soon wander away from where they began; the tune seems always to be in the process of shedding its skin, moving away from home, eschewing comfort in favour of new experience.
Further Than Memory provides – if such a thing is possible – the Sebaldian climax of the album. A delicately yearning piano that would make Erik Satie jealous, a keening scratch of fiddle, some moments of near-silence, then a short, discordant middle section full of uncertainty. In the closing minute, there is a percussive clop, like a heartbeat or the sound of someone walking steadily away. According to Ó Raghallaig this tune represents ‘a little inkling of thought, the more you grasp for it, the harder it is to get it.’ And in a sense that is true for the whole album – it is full of small mysteries, loose threads that, because of the intricacies and improvisatory nature of the playing, may never be completely gathered up.
Bartlett and Ó Raghallaigh prolific collaborators aside from their joint membership of The Gloaming. Bartlett is a sought-after producer (often working under the name Doveman) who has worked with Yoko Ono, St Vincent and Sufjan Stevens while Ó Raghallaigh has recorded with This Is How We Fly and played alongside the Waterboys. But listening to this album it is hard not to think that they were, in some way made for each other. The Rings Of Saturn is, amongst other things, a meditation on how things – thoughts and histories and narratives – evolve fluidly and coincidentally. Something similar could be said for the music of Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett. If these two remarkable musicians were brought together by coincidence, then they are bound by a shared sense of wonder at the possibilities of instrumental and improvised folk music. They have created an album that is seductively dreamlike but sometimes sad, layered like a palimpsest but accessible on every one of those layers. It is unlikely you will hear a better instrumental album this year.
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett is out on 11th October via Real Word.
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