Rónán Ó Snodaigh – Tá Go Maith
Arbutus Yarns Recording Company – 2021
Anyone’s guess is how the term ‘renaissance man’ might translate into Irish Gaelic, but it’s a term that fits Rónán Ó Snodaig, even if it’s one I suspect he’d shy away from. A master of the bodhran, amongst other percussion, Rónán is also the lead vocalist for the Irish band Kila. As well as being a well-respected songwriter, in both English and Irish, he has also published works of poetry…something that runs in the blood, his two brothers Rossa and Colm are also in Kila and, like Rónán, published books. Their father is the Irish language activist, poet, writer and publisher Pádraig Ó Snodaigh. As well as contributing to several recordings for film, he has also produced a run of solo recordings, of which this is his eighth. Always at the helm of Kila, that band have ten studio albums to their name and half that number as soundtrack works. Simultaneously, during the 1990s, he was a member of Dead Can Dance, ahead of giving Kila, and his solo work, pride of place. A busy fella, lockdown suddenly found him with time to spare.
‘Tá Go Maith’ translates as I am well. It is the marker of the possibly unexpected sense of wellbeing Ó Snodaigh attained during the enforced ban on performing provided by the pandemic. The catalyst came via filmmaker Myles O’Reilly, who, adrift without films to make, reawakened his first love, that of making music. He borrowed a Moog and began composing music under the moniker of ‘Indisticnt Chatter’. As he says:
“So when lockdown occurred,it didn’t take me long to revert back to younger me. I dusted off all the old studio equipment in my attic, which hadn’t been plugged in for a decade, and started recording again.”
So, when Ó Snodaigh came calling between lockdowns, they stepped into a recording studio where they set off working on an earlier version of this album’s title track. Taking just longer than it takes to make and consume a cup of tea, they had cracked it. Seeing this as an omen, the pair took off retreated to the countryside, to Shell Cottage, in Kildare. Ó Snodaigh takes up the tale:
“We immersed ourselves in music, tackling a new song each day, one by one they were done. In just 9 days we recorded the 9 songs on the album.”
O’Reilly’s music tends toward ambient electronic music, simple, spare and intuitive, while Ó Snodaigh’s words are given primary focus. His voice is also a wondrous instrument, subtle and slight, yet it gleams like a salmon jumping upstream.
The title track, ‘Tá Go Maith’, opens proceedings with fingerpicked guitar, a slight clatter of background bodhran and stabbing pulses of a chiming modular synth, electric piano-like notes stepping in line alongside the guitar. His voice is a light and breezy, happy sound, Ó Snodaigh adds multi-tracked sighs of contentment, the main melody almost evoking a fairground ride, the whole track a carousel.
The album steps up a gear, with joint organic and electronic percussion entering at a pace on ‘Ar Ár Son’. A background of drones and guitar beckon a more wistful sounding vocal, interspersed with an eerie musical chorus. The whole song is quietly hypnotic; the vocals become more confident and to the fore, becoming a mantra by way of an earworm. This is followed by ‘Tá’n t’Ádh Liom’ (Luck is with me), reflecting the ‘unexpected grace or luck’ that made this encounter and recording happen. Densely picked guitar and the indistinguishable gentle moan of a vocal or synth. The vocals, when they come, are again upfront and upbeat, the setting for them adding a glow of choral warmth.
‘Cag A Tugfadh Dom’ is almost a dance, at least vocally, but the paired acoustic/electronics give it an otherworldly feel, echoes of an alien ceremony. A ceremony that invites attention, Ó Snodaigh beckoning the song ever forward, propelled by the rhythm. So it is, then, a traditional-sounding tune that follows, appropriately, adding to the sense of procession. Led by guitar and synth, buoyed by gloriously wonky handclaps, Ó Snodaigh keens along for ‘The Great, Gallant, Brave and Bold Edward Fitzgerald‘ before breaking into falsetto, the background building before it fades into the same birdsong it began with. Dedicated to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who, despite his background as an Irish aristocrat and distinguished soldier, forsook all that in the pursuit of an independent Ireland, fatally wounded on the eve of an intended uprising. Rhob Cunningham provides additional guitar and vocals.
‘Sliabh Gan Aman’ has some mesmeric bodhran to underpin another Ó Snodaigh soaring vocal. The style and substance of this beguiling record is now drawing together into a focus, that mood requiring a few listens and no small amount of concentration to find. This is far from a simple record, contrary to any casual acquaintance. The vocals here career in from all sides, ululations reminiscent of a barking dog joining in towards the end…unusual yet sounds somehow normal.
Turning to poetic inspiration, ‘Farewell to English’ features an excerpt from a poem by Michael Hartnett. It explains, in English, why the late acclaimed Munster poet would no more be using that tongue. It opens with what sounds like a harp, and whilst the words are discernible, I prefer them as sounds within the context of the musical arrangement. However, they are still a mandatory read, as is the whole poem, maybe after the song is complete. It’s powerful stuff, which perhaps underwrites Ó Snodaigh’s embracing of his native tongue.
Counted-in in Irish, ‘Yan Tyan’ is more sinuous guitar and vocal, with a backing drone in contrast to the energy of the singing, the drone developing in the tones offered. Reminiscent of a playground round, but for grown-ups, calling to mind Yan tan tethera, a system (derived from the Brythonic Celtic language) for counting the likes of sheep, which is still used today in parts of Northern England.
‘Round the Roundabout/Timpeall an Timpeallián’, which closes proceedings, is perhaps the most conventional track here, starting elegiacally with guitar, ahead of a hushed chorale of Ó Snodaigh, O’Reilly and Cunningham. Otherwise instrumental, it is a stately endpiece that allows the songs before to settle. A shimmer of synth creeps in towards the end, a hopeful sound to close the album.
An album not to be rushed, Tá Go Maith presents an opportunity to slow down and embrace its evocative gentle mood and positivity. Do so, and you will discover “tá gach rud go maith”: all is well.
Tá Go Maith is released digitally today via Arbutus Yarns Recording Company
Get the album on Bandcamp: https://ronanosnodaigh.bandcamp.com/album/t-go-maith
https://www.ronanosnodaigh.ie/