John Spillane’s Lapwing Nation – 100 Snow White Horses
Inspired Records – 2 April 2021
Cork-born songwriter John Spillane has created a niche for himself in Irish folk music since embarking on his solo career since leaving the traditional band Nomos in 1997. Since then, he has ploughed a solo furrow releasing several well-received albums of original songs, combining with poet Louis DePaor in The Gaelic Hit Factory and recording two top-selling albums of traditional ballads Irish Songs We Learned at School and More Irish Songs We Learned at School.
Among his main traits is specializing in songs that commemorate people and places and this has provided a valuable additional strand to a repertoire of romantic love songs, traditional sean-nos material and quirky turn of events dialogues that have professed love for Dunne’s Stores supermarket clerks and meditations on the sentimental side of Irish history.
Of late, these songs of people and places have provided enough contents for three albums Life in an Irish Town and The Man Who Came in from the Dark and a television series Spillane Ar Fanai. This popular TG4 TV series saw him visiting rural towns and working as a bartender assimilating and soaking ethnic lore from local people to provide songs of national anthem status for towns throughout Ireland. This is a long way from his beginnings as a bank clerk in Limerick after leaving school and playing in bands as diverse as Sabre a New Wave/Dire Straits type rock band, The Stargazers a Jazzy vocal trio bathed in The Ink Spots and Mills Brothers and Nomos one of Irelands most exciting traditional bands of the mid-90s.
However diverse his background, to his credit he has managed to absorb the diverse strands into his own music and approach. This style involves a potent mix of traditional and contemporary folk with a sense of romanticism that’s pre-Raphaelite in its scope and the fervor of his delivery. He also incorporated a poetic colloquialism that renders his music rooted in the highways and byways of Ireland but is also universal in its outreach. It’s this balance of the local, national and international that has concerned his output to date since his first solo album The Wells of The World in 1997.
John Spillane’s latest collection 100 Snow White Horses sees him still careering through the streets of Ireland for wit and wisdom. On his journey, he encounters historical figures and local heroes some recognized and others consigned to local memory but worthy of songs. It’s here that John Spillane scores methodically making story songs that transcend the local bylines and bring them into mainstream focus and discussion. Returning to John Reynolds for production duties the results have the intimacy of his localized songs and the gloss of a mainstream production.
They have worked together before on Spillane’s Hey Dreamer and My Dark Rosaleen and The Island of Dreams in 2005 and 2008 respectively and after a 12 –year break the pair has reconvened. Both talents have developed considerably in the meantime and the results are a mature distillation of the best elements of their works. Reynolds’ production adds a worldly gloss and commercial sheen without diminishing the individuality and intimacy of John Spillane’s vocal and compositional approach.
Make no mistake this is a big album for both of them – the place where John Spillane’s career can take either a mega-jump into international mainstream success and popularity and where John Reynolds’ studio expertise can reach a new audience to ears bathed in Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno type ambience.
The mention of Brian Eno is more than coincidental as he has taken the front cover album picture. To do this mercifully neither protagonist has short-sold their talents. Both Johns remain the same it’s just the game –pitch is bigger and glossier than before but still manages to retain that essential intimacy that characterizes them.
John Spillane’s story songs delivered in his hushed semi talking vocals and his nylon string acoustic guitar remains at the forefront of the album. Retaining his romantic poeticism and troubadour approach, it is subtly embellished by quality musicians like Claire Kenny’s bass, Caroline Dale’s cello and Justin Adams’ electric guitar and Pauline Scanlon’s whispered vocals make songs like Bishopstown an ode to long lost love, eloquent nature-inspired lyrical turns and a sense of place that is both local and international. One could listen to this song in any place and enjoy the ambience and get the vibe created by the words and music. We Come in the Wind combines the poetic and the romantic elements of a Yeatesian muse on life and passing with a gentle electronic pulse behind the Spanish guitar. Natasha Atlas adds vocals to the dance beat pyrotechnics of Billy in the Sky which would be in the days of singles an obvious radio single choice. This beaty concoction is the most connected with his musical past where vocally shades of Donovan and Al Stewart inhabit the scenario as does spoken-word and trip-hop beats and Atlas’ celestial voicings. The Streets of Ballyphehane recalls the local heroes who died for Irish freedom including Padraig Pearce and Joseph Mary Plunket the poet/rebel immortalized in Grace recorded by Rod Stewart among others.
This time his gaze carries through other areas in Ireland outside Cork such as Under That Old Clare Moon and Slieve Gullion in Armagh the latter area covering the borders of Northern and Southern Ireland and a musing on the life of travelling harpist Turlough O’Carolan in Carolan and The Dawn Chorus inspired by the dawn Chorus on RTE’s Mooney Goes Wild and Molly Bawn written for the Clonmel Busking Festival. Spillane’s poetic ebullience recalls an invigorated Robin Williamson and poets such as Phillip Larkin and Seamus Heaney. There is an acid folk vibe running through The College Gates and the folk-rock ghosts of The Incredible String Band, Magna Carta and Nick Drake are seldom far away but it’s bordered by an electronic beat pulse that suggests that this is an album for 2021 and its anchor is as much in the chilled-out sanguinity as much as it is in the Irish ballad and poetic tradition that inspires its poetic ideals and romantic idealism. 100 Snow White Horses is a rich, molten cauldron of emotional blissed-out balladry blessed with poetic intimacy and a collection of story-songs that begs immediate listening. A masterclass of eloquent romanticism delivered by a poet of song.
Find out more: https://johnspillane.ie/