In 2020, I interviewed Marlais, the stage name of Michael Culme-Seymour. He spoke of his love for traditional folk music and how the Topic Records ‘Voice of the People’ series marked a turning point. “I couldn’t get enough of it and still can’t. There is an intensity to the music. I didn’t grow up listening to this kind of music so for me it was like unearthing a secret…”
For his latest album, Stream of Forms, out on 14th October via Kinship & Treibender Teppich Records, he takes inspiration from “the oral traditions of English and Irish folk music; the tales told on this album speak of emotions, as ancient as the human voice itself.”
Today, we have the pleasure of sharing his video for his stunning lead track ‘Out of the Window‘, a song he first heard sung by the Donegal singer, Paddy Tunney. The song appeared on Tunney’s 1966 album The Irish Edge, first released on Topic Records. The liner notes for that album share the following on the song:
Paddy speaks before he sings this song, and rightly points out that it has an affinity with Padraic Colum’s She Moved Through the Fair (cf. Herbert Hughes, Irish Country Songs). It should also be compared with I Once Had a True Love, which Paddy has already recorded for Topic on 12T139 A Wild Bees’ Nest, and which is immediately recognisable as the source of Colum’s sophisticated adaptation. The words of Out of the Window, as Paddy sings them, seem also to have been touched up by some poet like Colum, and students of folksong would be well-advised to consult Sam Henry Collection, Vol. 1, number 141, where a version from County Derry is printed. Paddy got the air (Doh mode hexatonic) from his mother, and he gives a really beautiful rendering of it in his own inimitable style.
Marlais on ‘Out of the Window’
I first heard Paddy Tunney sing this and it struck me how effortless he made it seem. He claims that it’s one of the roots or stems of the popular ballad ‘She Moves Through The Fair’.
Time and time again I am amazed at the cut throat nature of folk songs: an entire Romance built up over the course of the song only to be crushed by two lines at the end. Brutal.
The video was shot by Olle Holmberg one morning in the bar where I work. I clean it a few times a week and sing to keep myself company and to practise new songs. There is a meditative quality to it, and I can lose myself in the song and the work. The main shot is a testament to this approach: to slowing down, to appreciating the subtitles that life can bring.
Pre-Order Stream of Forms via Bandcamp (Digital/Vinyl) – https://treibenderteppichrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stream-of-forms
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