Leo O'Kelly - Will

Indelible, Enduring Sound

Stalwart readers of this blog, and even more-so, robust followers of my unfinished Top Fifty postings, might recall that when I began that category of favourite albums back in May, 2011, my first selection was A Tear and a Smile by the wonderful folk duo Tír na nÓg. As a first posting on this focus it was quite brief and I need to perhaps return and review more fully to reflect how important that album is to me and also the detail of subsequent selections. But I do think my love of the songs, and the impact they had on me at the time – what I referred to briskly, yet I trust meaningfully, as indelibly mixed into the tiedye of my growing up at the time – are obvious.

Imagine my delight then over the past few weeks to acquire recent work from both members of this Irish duo, Sonny Condell and Leo O’Kelly, and to discover that they do tour together with a possible visit to Bath this year [though I’m yet to get this confirmed].

I want to review O’Kelly’s album Will now, released unbeknown to me in March 2011, so remarkably near to the review I have just mentioned. I ordered and received it recently, and have enjoyed listening ever since – echoes of the past, but also a strong sense of being distinctly in the present. The collection of songs is a collaboration with the poet John McKeown who has contributed the lyrics. Indeed, opener and title track Will is perhaps the most overtly ‘poetic’, and to illustrate I will quote in full,

Bind me in fragrant linen

seal me in a tomb ship,

wake me when we dock

at the wharf of the next world.

I see its sun, its sky already

I see how its waters move,

hands moulding flesh from stone,

I see its sharp sickle moon.

Start the preparations now,

strop the blades, crack the jars,

mix unguents and herbs,

open my flesh like a sail.

These metaphors are wrapped musically and aptly in an upbeat and sing-song folk ditty with Hatty Lane’s vocal accompaniment adding a further folksy encapsulation of the poetic whim. Second Torch Song is reminiscent of a 60s/70s psyche folk in its synth [distortion/reverb] effects, but it is also so reminiscent of Tír na nÓg in the vocal tone and lilt of O’Kelly’s singing. Third The Day You Love Me has a Far East melodic core and O’Kelly singing with slight distortion effects on the vocal, the whole song having a hypnotic quality in its rhythmic repetitions. Fourth Prayed To The Devil Last Night is a sweet blues, fine guitar playing from Leo who also contributes violin, synth, bongos and drum programs to the whole album.

Fifth Alcohol is a more electronic number with a synth surround, augmented by echo and fuzzed at times, but O’Kelly’s wonderful voice is, for me, at its most reminiscent of that earlier TNN sound and thus I am captured by both its contemporary production and the inescapable link to an important aural past – Sonny Condell solidifying that link by playing African drums on this song. Sixth Kiki Of Montparnasse is another strong McKeown lyric, a further narrative on love and reflecting a sense of loss and hopelessness that has become thematic [here and, it would seem, in his other writing as with this poem Long-Term Relationships here].

Seventh A Star In My Palm is beautiful, and seemingly counters what I say about reflections on love in its positive reflections of attachment,

A star in my palm

would not shine

the way you do

though I wonder if this is tempered with an urge to acknowledge the duality of pain in loving so much and delivered through the image again of the star,

My midnight thoughts

have fingers now

holding you, my love.

And you burn me, burn me,

more than any star could do.

Eighth Old Testament is aptly foreboding in its pervasive electronic and burning imagery. Ninth She Dances again merges these electronic effects with the sweet voice of O’Kelly, here drifting above the synth and guitar with that soothing tone and lilt that defines his singing from the distant past and now, pleasingly for this fan. Tenth The End of Love is garage-pop but made brooding again by the lyrics, the killing fields of love. There is a repeated darkness in McKeown’s words, and the beauty of O’Kelly’s melodies holds them in a thoughtful tension. Penultimate song Grave Light [I think the title supports my preceding comment] is another electronic infused production – not over-produced, I mean using to interesting effect – and it wraps up lyrically and musically a truly engaging set of songs, whilst the title track gets a 49 second reprise to end the album, and does so as an echo of the start, and that lighter touch perhaps buffering its more brooding tones.

I wasn’t aware of this release of O’Kelly’s until recently and that is a shame as it deserves much more recognition - and this isn’t just the fan speaking: my attachment to the past is still based on superb quality then but I have made clear it is also fully reflected in the now, as reassuring echo but also firmly contemporary. You can and should order a copy here, and it is sold directly from Leo O’Kelly which adds another layer of satisfaction.