‘Solas an Lae’ (The Light of the Day) is the debut album from Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin and Ultan O’Brien due for release on November 5th 2020, via Watercolour Music. We shared their video for All Our Lonely Ghosts yesterday and today, ahead of the album release tomorrow you can listen to the album in full and read their track-by-track below.
Album Introduction
The human voice and the fiddle are sometimes thought of as musical cousins. Solas an Lae is an exploration of that relationship – an effort to bounce songs and strings off one another to see what might emerge.
Of course, Eoghan’s voice is fairly deep so we had to bring in the big fiddle for a lot of it. Throw in some drones and found-sounds from far-off rocks, and this is where we landed.
Having worked previously with Nick Turner, Mary Ann Kennedy and Rycote, we knew the place to take this was Watercolour Music in Ardgour, Scotland. We are delighted the album has found a home on their record label.
Solas An Lae – Track by Track
Mo Mhúirnín we’ll go far away
Get up out of the crooked town, let ye — we’ll not grudge you the light of the day. This album was an escape for us, and this setting of Pádraic Colum’s poem “The Beggar’s Child” set us up for the journey.
Circular routes enchant us, draw us in. Returning to the same point you left off from but never going back on yourself, always moving forward— there’s great satisfaction in it. It’s a way beyond, returning to a house rededicated, changed again.
These words float around like a refrain
As the folktale sees I see
As the folktale lives I live.
And the path to my door, that too is a folktale.
Coming here you either undergo what people undergo in a folktale, or you will never lift my latch.
Little wonder I so rarely hear my latch being lifted
(John Moriarty)
An Sceilpín Draighneach
Love, don’t abandon me because of sheep or cattle!
This is for all the romantics who don’t want to be rolling in the cash and who couldn’t care less about road frontage. Unfortunately for the fella in this song, his lover’s family aren’t too keen on him and it all ends in tears. He goes off and joins the army – not the best way to deal with a break-up,
but f’what can you do!
There are many versions of this song. This one is one we got from the great Colm Ó Caoidháin. Colm was a great singer, storyteller, composer and lilter from Glinsce. Séamus Ennis collected over 200 songs from him. He had a particular suspicion of the ediphone that recorded the songs, calling it “an seanfhear” (the old man), because of the way it distorted the sound:
“Meas tú dá gcuirfinn faoi mo smig mar seo é, nach amhlaidh amhlaidh is fearr a bheadh glór aige? Ní thaitníonn liom an ghlór atá tíocht amach – feicthear dhom go bhfuil sé an-bhodhfánta! Feictear dhom go bhfuil mé ag cur focla breá cainte isteach ann is níl fhios agam beirthe ná beo cén fáth nach labhródh sé amach breá gnaíúil mar tá mé féin a labhairt, mar bhí an ghnaíúlacht ag plé linne riamh, is neart cainteannaí againn. Níl a fhios agam beirthe ná beo céart atá air, murar ceal braon óil atá air!”
“I wonder if I put it under my chin like this would it make a better sound. I don’t like the sound that comes out of it. It seems to be very deadening. I think I am giving it fine words of speech, and I have no idea why it can’t speak out properly and clearly just as I am speaking because we were always known to be decent people, and we had lots of things to say. I have no idea what’s wrong with it – unless it needs a drink.”
We hope this oul fella doesn’t sound too strained to ye. Hopefully we’ll get to play it all out in the flesh soon enough.
Tá na páipéir dhá saighneáil
This song picks up on a similar theme to where the last one left off – the papers are being signed and the soldiers are off to war. Many Irish men would have gone to the “Land of the Ships” (England) to join the army in the 19th century. In this song, the soldier leaves behind his beloved, who is left heartbroken.
Spikey Flynn
A set of tunes comprising Eoghan’s very own version of ‘Spike Island lasses’ and a tune Ultan adores for its cheekiness, ’Bridget Flynn’.
Òran A’ Cheannaiche
Ultan adapted this air from the beautiful singing of Mary Ann Kennedy. You can hear Mary Ann’s singing of it on the album Aon Teanga:Un Çhengey. Mary Ann also recently released an album of songs called Glaschú – home town love song and Ultan can’t wait to get his fiddly fingers into these songs.
The air is followed by a tune called Caisleán an Óir, composed by Junior Crehan– a nod to Ultan’s Clare roots.
Òran A’ Cheannaiche, when sung, tells the story of an imaginary conversation between ‘Black’ Iain MacDonald and the Ceannaiche – a rock off the Glendale coastline. Iain says:
’S on a dh’fhàg mi thu, chan eil sruth sa mhuir nach aithnich mi,
Gun d’fhalbh mo chruth ’s mo neart ’s mo ghuth, ’s ma-thà, tha thu ’n-diugh gam aithneachadh;
Ach tha thu fhèin a’ seasamh treun – ro ghaoth nan speur cha chreathnaich thu,
’S cha chrith thu orra bhuinn bho na tuinn a tha stealladh ort.
And since I left you, I have got to know every current in the sea; My shape, my strength, my voice have gone, and for all that you still recognise me today: But you stand bravely before the the heavens’ winds, unflinching, Unmoved on your foundations by the waves that pound you.
And the Ceannaiche responds:
Ged tha mi làidir, mòr is àrd, bheir fear neo dhà mo char asam –
Is e mo bhathar tha toirt fàs air a’ bhuntàta ’s t-earrach ac’;
Cha tig na mèirlich ga mo phàigheadh ged nach fàg iad stamh orm,
’S nam faighinn cothrom falbh, bhiodh crith-thalmhainn mun teallaichean.
Although I am strong, large and tall, one or two will outwit me;
It is my cargo that fertilises their potatoes in spring,
But the thieves do not come to pay me although they take every bit of tangle from me,
And were I to go away, it would cause an earthquake around their firesides.
Of course, an air on a fiddle does a-way with the words. It becomes more introverted. So listen away and have your own imaginary conversation with yourself or with the rock.
All Our Lonely Ghosts
All Our Lonely Ghosts is a dark song. It charts the treatment of women, children and those who have been silenced in Irish society over the decades. Where Catholic Ireland locked people in Church-run institutions in days gone by, modern day neoliberal Ireland puts them in family hubs, direct provision centres, or leaves them to roam the streets of our cities and towns.
While the song is bleak, we see hope – in the courage of the survivors who are campaigning for justice and in the movements that are fighting for a better world.
Máirseáil na Sióg
Time for tunes… Lilting tunes.
This first march of the fairies is about a fairy-messenger of a man who managed—with a hawthorn bush and a warning—to move a motorway.
Once there was a man. He’d carry fairy messages and often fight battles on their behalf.
One day he heard from a farmer that there had been evidence of a battle amongst fairies the night before down by a hawthorn bush in County Clare.
This bush was and is a meeting point for Munster fairies to battle it out with Connaught fairies. Of course, we can’t say for certain what these Munster and Connaught fairies get up to— the evidence suggests there have been battles, but we don’t know what else they might get up to.
The bush was and is a boundary point—a threshold. Crossing this threshold is crossing into an-other world of seeing and knowing;
a way for us to be able to lift the door’s latch, to undergo what people undergo in a folktale.
Not long after this, the fairy messenger saw new machinery and construction workers around the bush. A new motorway was to be built and he feared for the life of the bush.
He warned them that if they were to destroy the bush there would be serious consequences. His warning spread across the Atlantic Ocean to our friends in the States, across the Irish Sea to our neighbours in the UK and further across throughout the rest of Europe. The message was simple: never move a fairy bush.
“It belongs where it is and nowhere else.”
“And if you have no magic in your life, you’re in a sad place.”
—Eddie Lenihan
Máirseáil na Síog is a tune composed by Eoghan. Here it is followed by Johnny from Gandsey and Rip the Calico.
Bríd Ní Ghaora
The fella in this song is a bit of a rake, sailing the seas with his load of turf, often with a few drinks in him – the kind of stuff you couldn’t be up to these days, probably rightly so. Anyway, he’s in love with Bríd Ní Ghaora, who gives him free drink and seems to be fairly good craic.
Cúirt Bhaile Nua/ My Brother Tom
We got this song from the singing of Treasa Ní Mhiolláin. It’s another song of unrequited love. My Brother Tom is a great lifty tune to snap us out of all the heartbreak.
The Light of the Day
Well, this is how we say goodbye. For now.
We finished recording this album in October 2019. Getting up to Ardgour to record Solas an Lae was an escape for us– a musical escape from the overwhelm. And look at the covid-state of the place now! By christ!
Things can get on top of you – music is the great escape. It lifts off the bridles and anchors the world puts on us— lifts the door’s latch;
Since we recorded this, the weight of everything has grown heavier for many people, for many different reasons. We hope this bit of music can help fling off a bit of the weight and help people breathe a little bit easier.
Recorded at Watercolour Music Studio in March 2019
Release date: November 5th 2020
Label: Watercolour Music
‘Solas an Lae’ (The Light of the Day) is the debut album from Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin and Ultan O’Brien due for release on November 5th 2020, via Watercolour Music. Pre-order the digital album or vinyl on Bandcamp: https://eoghanultan.bandcamp.com/releases
In celebration of their album launch, join Eoghan and Ultan online, Thursday 5th November, 8.30pm-10pm, for “Solas an Lae – a Digital Folk Opera”. For full details, visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/2796352953934649/
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/EoghanUltan
Twitter: Eoghan https://twitter.com/Ceannabhain Ultanhttps://twitter.com/Ultan_Music
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