Formed in 2012, the olllam are an Irish-American band – The name derives from the bards of the old Irish kings, but the word ollam can simply and appropriately mean master or highest ranked. The extra L in their spelling represents the orginal core creative trio of John McSherry and the Detroit natives Tyler Duncan and Michael Shimmin. Their website has since added Joe Dart (Vulfpeck) to the lineup.
In 2014, we interviewed John McSherry about the project:
“Yeah, we’d always been talking about doing something together over the years. Tyler would have been coming over to Ireland once a year maybe playing with his band Millish or other projects and we’d meet up here and there for tunes and craic. It was from one of these visits that we finally got the opportunity to write some tunes together. We had two or three free days and focused all our attention on composing. Tyler went back to the States and had the idea of bringing the great drummer, Michael Shimmin into the mix. It has proved to be a masterstroke.”
On their debut album they deliberately shifted away from traditional structures to allow for a more song-like feel to the tracks: “Before any of the melodies were composed, myself and Tyler discussed what we wanted to say with the album, how we wanted to approach the melody writing and what kind of sound we were after. Typically, in Irish music, tunes are put into ‘sets’ of two, three or more, each tune having a different mood or rhythm from the previous. We wanted to steer away from this approach and treat each track on the album as a piece on its own, like a song with verses, chorus’s, middle eights, outros and intros etc. We wanted the mood of each piece to rise and fall naturally”.
In his review of their debut album, Simon Holland concludes “It’s a stunner that works on every level, the writing, the musicianship, the arrangements and ultimately the listening experience. With its roots in the jigs and reels of the Irish this is music that knows no boundaries, not even the width of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Their musicianship is unquestionable, something that becomes all the more apparent when seen in a live setting. Just after that album review, they performed at Celtic Connections (2014) at Oran Mor which marked their Scottish debut performance. It was on a double bill with Ross Ainslie who presented his album Wide Open. the olllam’s singular blend of funk, jazz and tradition certainly seemed to hit the spot with that audience as Neil McFadyen revealed in his live review here.
He concludes: “As the evening progressed the interplay between McSherry and Duncan grew more and more intriguing, melody and harmony flitting around each other like a pair of nectar crazed butterflies and the rhythm section building crescendos that had the audience in raptures. It’s tempting to mourn the paucity of improvisation – John McSherry’s skill in this direction is the stuff of legend and a live encounter with the man almost invariably results in his explosive inventiveness. Given the over-riding jazz genes flowing through the music it seemed almost natural to expect it in live performance. But the olllam are a new entity, with a tight, carefully crafted piece of work. No matter the skill levels of the individual protagonists, and that can’t be doubted, they still have to find their way with what they’ve created. They’ve tamed the beast of their own invention and brought it to an audience – there’s time for all that. For now, that audience can enjoy the result of their efforts and the elation that comes with live performance. Take my advice and do just that.”
Before getting to their new single, it’s worth watching them in action, here they are in 2015, performing The Tryst After Death at DeBarras in Clonakilty, West Cork:
Back in May, they released a new single titled “with pure crystalll teeth” which you can listen to below and is also our Song of the Day. This, along with two other singles: lllow the sun and stream of silllver, are available via Bandcamp now so let’s hope an album is not too far away on the horizon.
https://theolllam.bandcamp.com/