Brídín – Ocean of Stars
Independent – 24 February 2021
Amongst the many and varied tales about Boann, the Irish goddess of the River Boyne and the wife of Dagda Mor, is one of how, whilst giving birth to her children, a harpist played. It appears that each of the three births that resulted in her sons were echoed in the sound of the harp music: crying, merry and laughing. These three could be said to be still the essential components that make up Irish harp music and even the continual development of the harp within contemporary folk maintains this.
And if you want to hear a fine example of the harp in the contemporary folk music of Ireland, then listen to Ocean of Stars, the new EP by Brídín. Brídín comes from a long line of musicians stretching back four generations and, as well as the harp, she plays flute and piano and operates a very slick loop pedal.
The EP contains five tracks, of which Floating was released as a single earlier this month. A riff on the bongos with voice over the top starts off; these are looped and then more is added as the simple refrain “When we go down to the water we don’t swim we stay floating” is repeated over and over. The tune grows in power and then fades quite quickly, leaving the harp, with a slight reverb, picking out the notes of the words. The use of the loop pedal is unobtrusive, the layers building and additions making the acoustic matrix more and more complex; when it all stops, bar the harp, it is as if the excitement and the anticipation of the experience had dissipated and left you to soak in its essence.
There is a YouTube video where Brídín is making a purely solo iteration of this track. For this version on the EP she has extra layers courtesy of Paul Leonard on drums, Brian Dillon on keyboard and Jack Selby-Smith on bass.
The build up of power is also tangible in The Salmon’s Tale. Almost in two movements, the first half is very catchy, lots of activity, perhaps the young salmon in the river on its way downstream. The second part is much slower but there is an underlying feeling of power, the fish having reached the sea, and whilst the frisky nature of the fresh water may imply speed, the real strength lies in the briny deep. The violin on this track is provided by Colm Mac Con Iomaire.
There is a variety here that makes the EP a good listen and expanding out from the core of harp-plus-loops really adds to the development of the style: the fiddle of Clare Sands (recently featured here) on North West comes into its own after providing several bars as drone. It may be contemporary but there are clear echoes of those four generations and maybe more.
As a reviewer, you don’t often get an insight into the private life of the artist. On one level you think that as a professional musician, that’s all they do, a bit like schoolchildren think of their teachers as people who climb into a box at the end of the day only to come out again when the next school day starts. But perhaps more than at other times, in this period of wondering how are musicians surviving, it is interesting to find some have other strings to their bow – or harp in this case. Brídín by night may be a contemporary folk artist, but by day she is a funeral director and embalmer. Somehow, as this is Ireland, I am not surprised. How Brídín fits all this in I don’t know, but I look forward to a full album to see where the harp takes us. Excellent.
Bandcamp: https://bridin.bandcamp.com/track/ocean-of-stars