Skipper’s Alley – The Oul Fip
Self Released – Out Now
I have to admit that, although previously featured on Folk Radio, I am a tad late to this particular party, but Skipper’s Alley was worth it. Their album The Oul Fip was released in digital format back in November of last year and the CD and vinyl versions in February. However, it is a delight whatever the delay.
Part of the ever-changing Dublin folk scene, Skipper’s Alley take the old, the traditional, and move it on to suit the current and by turn, the times ahead. One of the things that attract me to Irish folk music is the very clear link between the past, the present and the future, and, along the way, playing around with a few things, tweaking here, altering there. Not so much a case of showing what can be done now, more a case of taking the tradition and making the song or the tune your own.
The band consists of five musicians, four of whom play the whistle in addition to other instruments. Consequently, the tin whistle features often and sometimes the challenge seems to be to rein them in, though gladly the restraint adds to the musical tension. Sometimes, as in Walking in the Dew, the whistles – including a double Bb whistle taped together with some blue tack over the holes – provide a bright contrast to the intense, slow lament. In contrast, in Ryan’s Rant, they add to the complete sound picture, flitting around above the flute.
Repetition is important in many folk tunes; the regular recurrence of words and notes makes for easy oral learning. And repetition also hooks the listener and gives them the time and space to become part of the rhythm. Nellie, Your Favour I’m Afraid I’ll Not Gain, one of many splendid titles on this album uses the short repeats of the tune to build the tension, the anticipation, before eventually resolving into the second tune, Mountain Lark.
Some songs travel around a bit, and here we have The Farmer’s Curst Wife, a version of The Devil and the Ploughman that crops up all over the place. Reaped from Seamus Ennis with a touch of one or two others, it features the banjo and the fiddle giving the nod to Appalachia. Madam, I’m A Darling! Also crops up in many guises across the UK though this version is taken from Frank Harte, the traditional Irish singer and song collector.
Within these rich and varied interpretations, shafts of light represent the freer, more liberal aspects of change within the world of Irish music, the thing that the Dublin scene seems to engender, allowing new things and different things to come together in many and varied ways. You get the idea with Rolling in the Barrel, an old reel that has been slowed down to the point where at times it becomes a march, redolent of the sort of tune associated with medieval soldiery, but equally at home in post-anthemic rock. In a similar vein, the polka Tralee Gaol becomes a march on purpose, though more in time signature than tempo as keeping pace at that speed would be a bit wearing. The third track to suggest that more is at play here than just moving forward is Ryan’s Rant that starts off as one might expect a reel to be, then as the tune builds the flute and the whistles turn into demons.
All in all, a great album – a great collection of tunes, not limited in style or type, and full of invention, excitement and tradition. It will be interesting to see where Skipper’s Alley take us next. Excellent.
Order The Oul Fip via Bandcamp – https://skippersalley.bandcamp.com/
https://www.skippersalley.ie/