Brigid Mae Power
Dream from the Deep Well
Fire Records
30 June 2023
Though it is often only noted in hindsight, we sometimes have the privilege of seeing an artist mature into myth. Frequently this maturation coincides with a period of domesticity, of settling or acceptance. After Bob Dylan’s infamous motorcycle accident, he retreated from the world and began, consciously or not, the creative processes that would lead to some of his most cherished albums. Nashville Skyline, New Morning, Planet Waves, and perhaps even Blood On The Tracks were all conceived in this period of comparative harmony. What links all these albums is their sense of the mythic. Their songs seem at first to be devoid of the contemporary concerns of his earlier work. Instead, Dylan focussed on universal themes: massively universal in the grand historic sense, yes, but also universal in a smaller, more physical sense. The music was looser, more informal, and the lyrics were about nature and love and his own specific love for his wife and son.
There are other ways of approaching the mythic, but when the history of twenty-first-century folk music is written, it may be that Brigid Mae Power will have been seen to take a similar route to that of Dylan, albeit in a more condensed time frame. Dream From The Deep Well is her third album, and it is perhaps her most accessible, relying as it does on a more traditional approach to songcraft. It is also, as the title suggests, her most profound: the songs see Power retreat into herself and examine the things she holds dearest: family, music, place and her own humanitarian values.
Counting Down has an ultra-simple, incredibly powerful chord progression of the type Dylan utilised on Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door or Richard Thompson beefed up for the mythic-elemental Calvary Cross. But here, the concerns are gentler, the subject a more precious thing: Power sings of parental responsibility, and the difficulties of maintaining a creative career in the frankest of ways, and the result is deeply moving. The Waterford Song is a dreamlike reflection on place and belonging, Power’s voice circling and swooping over a tripped-out strum of strings. I’ll Wait Outside For You has tinges of cosmic country around the edges: decorative curlicues of steel guitar frame a meandering lyric that finds the poetry in everyday existence.
The title track is another simply-strummed acoustic song adorned with dream-bright flourishes of harmonica and echoing vocals, while I Don’t Know Your Story is tender and piano-led, with a melody that wanders and explores and a burst of birdsong. The album is bookended by two beautifully-sung Irish traditional songs, and there is also a sweetly melancholic cover of Tim Buckley’s I Must Have Been Blind.
When she does approach political subjects, it is always from a deeply personal standpoint. Maybe It’s Just Lightning is a moving account of the migrant experience, informed by the time Power spent as the host of two refugees, a mother and daughter. On Ashling, she tells the heartbreaking story of a young Irish school teacher who was murdered in County Offaly. It’s done with such simplicity and clarity, such dignity and defiance, that it becomes, almost unwittingly, a kind of universal anthem. Myth is not always grand or overbearing; when it acts as a framework on which our own stories hang, it can be almost invisible, more of a feeling than a structure. On Dream From The Deep Well, Brigid Mae Power has created a piece of art that resonates timelessly on a mythic level. In spite of or perhaps because of this, it is also a highly personal piece of art, brimming with the joy and sadness that hides in plain sight, in the minutiae of everyday life.
Order Dream from the Deep Well here: https://brigidmaepower.lnk.to/DREAM
Live dates
21 Sep: Cottier’s Theatre, Glasgow, UK
22 Sep: Brewery Arts, Kendal, UK
23 Sep: Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek, UK
24 Sep: The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge, UK
25 Sep: Moth Club, London, UK
26 Sep: Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, UK
Tickets: https://brigidmaepower.com/tour/