Brigid Mae Power: Head Above Water (Fire/Southbound)

 |   |  1 min read

We Weren't Sure
Brigid Mae Power: Head Above Water (Fire/Southbound)

Elsewhere is well-known for approaching English and Irish folk music with some caution if not outright suspicion.

The lamentations, murder and miserablism, references to medievalism, “fair maiden” and “kind sir” lyrics . . . . that is rarely for these ears.

But of course there are a more contemporary stylists – like ol' Bill Fay or the drone-folk of Lankum – who have seduced us recently.

Irish folkie Brigid Mae Power cleaves to some very traditional elements in her singing style and songs (the courting, wannabe bigamist Blacksmith here is a very old song).

But to this she brings something of the 21stcentury: Wearing Red That Eve is a slow narrative of men in New York shouting rude things at her in her red dress “to the knee”, and how she confronted them in a way which surprised and frightened her. Then it flips into more poetic thoughts.

Musically she and her bandmates embrace organ and pedal steel (Wedding of a Friend) alongside fiddle and bohdran (discreetly deployed), mandolin and electric guitars.

But it is her often strangely soaring yet droning singing style which nudges this into a more folkadelic realm, and her wordless vocals which can sound almost Indian in their delivery and microtones. Or full of some indefinable yearning, as on the gloriously engrossing I Was Named After You which eases into pure slowcore psychedelia with flute towards the end of its six minutes.

She can pull you in to a strange dreamworld (the aural mystery of Not Yours to Own which seems deliberately free of construction and direction) where references to a slo-folk Mazzy Star or Julee Cruise in a Mogadon haze would not be amiss.

Maybe over its 45 minutes it errs too much towards a similar, downbeat mood and the vocalisations are played out too often (We Weren't Sure).

southboundshoplogoBut at its dreamy best and in discrete sampling this lives up to the title of one of its songs: You Have a Quiet Power.

.

You can hear this album at Spotify hereIt is also be available through Southbound Records here



Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Bert Jansch: Avocet 40th Anniversary Edition (Earth/Southbound)

Bert Jansch: Avocet 40th Anniversary Edition (Earth/Southbound)

The late Scottish singer/guitarist and songwriter Bert Jansch who co-founded the influential Pentangle and died in 2011, left a vast legacy of albums of which many are still coming to terms with.... > Read more

Lindon Puffin: Show Pony (Puffin Music/Elite)

Lindon Puffin: Show Pony (Puffin Music/Elite)

South Island singer-songwriter Puffin came to national attention with an amusing doco which followed him on an extensive, smalltown tour. The success of that film somewhat delayed this follow-up... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE BARGAIN BUY: Superbrew; Africa Aroha

THE BARGAIN BUY: Superbrew; Africa Aroha

 When, just five years ago, this innovative and enjoyable album from '87 was given an "at last!" reissue on CD, Elsewhere used it as an example of how exciting New Zealand jazz had... > Read more

THE BRAVADOS and BANDOLERO! (DVD): Westerns of the outlaw kind

THE BRAVADOS and BANDOLERO! (DVD): Westerns of the outlaw kind

The early years of the 21st century saw a revival of gritty, realistic and unglamorous westerns with morally ambivalent characters. Clint Eastwood (of course) had set the tone in the early... > Read more