We chat to the Anglo-Irish quartet about their wonderful new album of traditional Irish songs set to improvised music: cue major and minor key switching, intuition and creative satisfaction.
The circumstances of The Haar quartet forming are perfectly befitting an outfit focused on bringing old folk tales to life in an improvised setting. There was more than an element of chance and fate surrounding the initial meeting, as well as the odd obscenity. “We were over on Inis Oírr, which is an island off the west coast of Galway, to launch our [Stone Soup] album”, begins Cormac Byrne. “We were there one evening in Rory’s Pub having a pint. There’s always a session there, and in the tradition of Ireland, when someone sings, the place falls silent, so there was Molly singing this beautiful song…” “I think it was ‘Slán Abhaile'”, offers Molly Donnery. “Yeah, it was,” Adam Summerhayes says. “The whole place was silent, and I just heard this beautiful voice. I’ve been wanting to collaborate with the right singer for a couple of decades and had never heard somebody with the quality that was in my head, so when I heard Molly, I said to Cormac, ‘Jesus, we need to do something with her’, and he said he knew who she was and would have a chat.” “I think ‘holy fuck!’ was what you said actually,” laughs Cormac.
This was a fortuitous encounter, which Cormac and Adam had not expected, but they had come prepared. “Adam had brought over a little mobile recording studio,” explains Cormac. “The idea was to do a track down at the Plassey, which is a shipwreck on the island. You’ll recognise it, because it’s in the opening credits to Father Ted. So we just texted Molly and went down at sunset with the recording equipment.” “We nearly didn’t make the bloody sunset, we were walking so slowly,” laughs Adam. “We got there five minutes before it went down.” “We literally had one shot, so we said to Molly just sing what you like.” “It was amazing,” nods Cormac. “Adam and I have done improvised work before, but we didn’t know Molly was comfortable with that. But I guess that the Irish tradition lends itself to musicians and singers being completely comfortable with improvising and arranging on the spot. When we did that recording something really resonated, and we thought then that there was something in it.”
The next phase of the project was when accordion player Murray Grainger entered the scene. “Adam and I were recording Ciderhouse stuff [Untold] and were having a break when Adam showed me the video that they did with Molly,” Murray says. “I thought it was great and Adam basically said ‘what about it?’ It was an easy decision, so we got the diaries out. It was so obviously going to work, you can tell from the video, and I knew that there was a space for me, which was really exciting.” “I hadn’t thought of it being a disc at all until that point,” says Adam, “but it just seemed to fit. The idea of having the trad songs with stuff behind them was to make a musical landscape, almost like a soundtrack to a movie, that fitted behind the song. You’ve got Cormac to give you that traditional feel and Murray and I have a way of weaving these soundscapes, so the whole idea came at once. I think that was when I sent a text to Molly…” “It wasn’t something I was expecting at all,” admits Molly. “I also thought that what we did on Inis Oírr was amazing, but I never thought this would come out of it. I was actually working a pretty boring office job that summer, so the timing was good, and once I heard that Murray was on board too, I knew it would be a dream project to work on.”
When it came to recording, a potentially challenging format turned out to be a smooth and rewarding process. “It was great,” says Cormac. “To be honest, we went into it without arrangements, which Adam, Murray and I had done, so we knew the three of us could cope in that environment, but I remember hoping that Molly was okay with it. We pretty much just play, which is good for instrumentalists, but not many singers would go through that process.” “In some ways, it was a challenge, but I had worked on similar things before,” Molly says. “The guys blend so well together, and I really like improv work when it comes to vocals, so it was a great opportunity. It really did work from the start; most of the time I knew exactly when to come in and when to back off, and it just weaved together.” “One of the most amazing memories I have is ‘King’s Shilling’,” Murray tells us. “It’s a serious song, but the normal way of doing it is in a major key, so it almost sounds happy, although it isn’t. We were trying to do it and working out the chords and structure…” “That was quite rare too,” says Adam. “Most of the songs just flowed from the start, but we were stuck on this one.” “So, Molly and I were figuring it out,” continues Murray, “and then we hear the other two say to us that it’s not working and have we thought about it in a minor key. Now, to an instrumentalist, that’s fine, but you don’t do that to a singer! That’s normally when you get a meltdown, but Molly said ‘hold on a minute’ and then just sang it.” “Yeah, that blew my mind as well,” agrees Cormac. “She sang the first line, so we started recording and what’s on the disc is what happened next,” laughs Adam.
The relationship between the four performers comes across beautifully on record, and you get a strong impression of pride and satisfaction from each of them. “The thing is that usually, you get the singer and the band,” explains Murray. “What felt so strong about this from day one is that this is a quartet, a four-piece band. Adam sings through his violin and Cormac sings through the bodhrán; it’s four singers or four instrumentalists, count it how you like. It’s that control that made this project work.” “We had to bring our top game to the studio, too,” says Cormac. “There wasn’t time to think; it was more that everybody’s experience of every musical project they’ve done came out and in a very honest way. I really value this process, and I think it gets different results.” “I’ve sung these songs since I was eight or nine,” continues Molly. “What I’ve been taught to understand is the emotion and the way that they carry. There’s a reason that they’re still here and that they’re so important to people. I think sometimes when these songs are heavily arranged, they can lose some of that emotion. I think the way we handled them captured emotions in the songs that could have been lost if we spent too much time on them.” “For me, what we did was what I hoped the project would be,” Adam says. “The songs are history, and we were trying to set them to a soundtrack that brought out a feeling of that history. I’m not sure you could do that another way or with many people. It’s a matter of being able to totally trust the people you’re playing with and know that they are trusting themselves… It’s rare and not something you can do with just anyone.”
Read our review of The Haar here.
https://soundcloud.com/thehaarband/siul-a-run-the-haar/s-rPLS2SPkzy7
The Haar is released on 5 June and can be Pre-Ordered here: