Lisa O’Neill – The Wren, The Wren
River Lea Recordings – Mp3 available now, 7” and CD 13th December
In the twelve months since its formation, Rough Trade’s folk subsidiary River Lea Records has released three of the defining albums of that period. Those three very different records, by Ye Vagabonds, Brìghde Chaimbeul and Lisa O’Neill are united by an uncompromising and at times thrillingly iconoclastic approach to traditional music. Now O’Neill has returned with a new EP of three thematically linked songs that examine the relationships between fact and myth, memory and forgetting. Two of the songs – the self-written John Joe Reilly and the traditional (and extremely old) The Wren, The Wren – concern the St. Stephen’s Day tradition of hunting the wren, a ritual celebration of midwinter that may have pre-Christian origins and is known throughout Europe, and particularly in Celtic countries.
The Wren, The Wren is an Irish take on the subject, and is the perfect vehicle for O’Neill’s distinctive voice. She is a native of County Cavan and a fixture of the resurgent Dublin folk scene along with Ye Vagabonds and Lankum, and her singing reflects both her rural roots and the thrillingly modern experimentalism of her peers. The Wren, The Wren fizzes along with the energy of the hunt, backed by a low drone and spiced up by a nimble fiddle finale.
John-Joe Reilly, O’Neill’s own composition is a tale of romantic betrayal set against the backdrop of the wren hunt that deftly updates the old ‘false lover’ trope beloved of folk singers since antiquity. It’s a more sober affair than The Wren but allows the ragged power of O’Neill’s voice to take centre stage.
The third song, which is available on the CD release, is a version of Come Back Paddy Reilly To Ballyjamesduff by Percy French. French was a highly regarded poet and songwriter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was also an inspector of drains, and his job took him around Ireland. He wrote about the small Co. Cavan town of Ballyjamesduff in 1912 after an earlier visit there, and the song became popular in Ireland and America. O’Neill’s version imparts a rough-hewn timelessness that provides a counterpoint to the sentimentality of the lyrics.
In fact, all three songs have that timeless quality. Listened to out of context it would be difficult to tell the ancient from the modern. This is an important feature of O’Neill’s gifts as a singer and musician. She is helping to drag Irish folk music kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century without losing any of its old magic.
https://lisaoneill.ffm.to/thewren
Pre-Order CD/7″ via https://store.roughtraderecords.com/products/lisa-o-neil-the-wren-the-wren
Lisa O’Neill will tour the UK as a special guest of Calexico and Iron & Wine from November 18th to the 24th before returning for her own headline show at the Union Chapel, Islington on February 6th with very special guest Colm Mac Con Iomaire, as part of an extensive UK Tour . Tickets available now from local outlets.
Forthcoming Headline Tour Dates
Feb 2nd – Bristol, Folk House
Feb 4th – Oxford, The Bullingdon
Feb 5th – Cambridge, Junction 2
Feb 6th – London, Union Chapel w/ very special guest Colm Mac Con Iomaire
Feb 7th – Birmingham, Glee Club
Feb 11th – Manchester, Yes
Feb 12th – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
Feb 13th – York, The Black Swan
Feb 14th – Durham, The Old Cinema Launderette
Feb 15th – Edinburgh, Summerhall
Feb 16th – Glasgow, CCA
Feb 18th – Sheffield, The Greystones