Second album from Transatlantic-style fiddling duo, Hannah O’Brien and Grant Flick. To be savoured like a fine wine.
Release Date: 16th August 2024
Label: Self Release
Formats: CD / Digital
Unmatched Pair is the second album from Transatlantic-style fiddling duo, Hannah O’Brien & Grant Flick and follows their 2021 debut offering, Windward. It’s an album that combines the formative influences of each member of the duo to produce an intricate weave of Irish, classical and American musical styles that, in the words of Hannah and Grant, “…tell the story of people, places and events and which showcase the pair’s love for arranging and composing as they continue to find the meeting point between their musical worlds.” It all works a treat; Unmatched Pair is the album equivalent of a fine wine – this is music to be savoured and to be absorbed by.
Boston (Massachusetts) – based Hannah learned fiddle from her father, Andrew O’Brien, a member of the famed musical Dublin O’Brien dynasty. Unsurprisingly, Irish influences pervade her work, alongside the classical themes on which she also specializes.
Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Grant’s main musical influences are American and include bluegrass, jazz and Texas swing. He’s a multi-instrumentalist and, on Unmatched Pair, he also plays tenor guitar and nyckelharpa alongside his fiddle.
The duo first got together in 2020 and they’ve attracted several awards in the intervening years, including the 2020 University of Michigan Excel Enterprise Grant, the 2021 Binkow Chamber Music Grant and the 2023 Iguana Fund Grant.
Unmatched Pair features eleven tracks, ten of which are original compositions. Hannah’s Irish roots are clearly evident throughout the album but Unmatched Pair isn’t an album that you’d classify as an Irish folk collection. In fact, with the liberal doses of classical, jazz, Central European, Scandinavian and blues influences that also decorate these tunes, it’s difficult to classify Unmatched Pair in any way whatsoever. This music is entirely original.
The message is clear right from the outset, with the Irish flavourings of opening track, Dismal Natch, countered by some neat interplay between Hannah’s violin and Grant’s guitar. The fiddles are flighty and so very alive that you almost expect them to speak! Hannah’s Irish upbringing is even more evident in her composition, The Fool’s March, a typical Irish air that reminds this listener of the traditional tune, The King Of The Faries. Hannah’s and Grant’s fiddles are in absolute accord, and the tune, like all the best Irish airs, oozes sadness.
We move into jazzier territory for the album’s title track, although we still get a few glances of the Emerald Isle, before Double Pass, the more recent of the album’s two singles brings us rip-roaring back into County Galway. It’s a breathtaking, super-speed, space-age reel and the duo do it full justice.
Another real highlight is the classically-themed Cape Disappointment, a fascinating and engaging tune in which Hannah’s and Grant’s violin parts are, at times, so tightly entwined that it would be impossible to tear them apart, and the classical flavouring is retained for The Alpinist, the album’s longest track and its central feature. It’s a wistful tune, expertly played and it captures my comparison to a fine wine (see above) more completely than any other track on the album.
The bright, breezy, Beaver Island Ferry is yet another standout track. Beaver Island is the largest island in Lake Michigan and the ferry to it operates from Charlevoix on the north coast of Grant’s home state of Michigan. The track is the album’s lead single and, with just a hint of bluegrass and a melody that rises and falls like the waves of the lake, it’s the perfect taster.
Hannah pays tribute to her father and his influential compatriot with the semi-traditional set Andrew O’Brien’s Fiddle/John Kelly’s Concertina. Hannah’s soaring violin is a delight, and Grant’s pared back guitar is the perfect accompaniment to this medium-paced tune.
Perhaps it’s the sound of the nyckelharpa that does it, but the grand, relentless, Golden Boots seems to have a Swedish feel to it, before things get a little more light-hearted with the delightful Zig Zag. It’s a dramatic tune that reminds me somewhat of Fairport’s Bridge Over The River Ash, and the pleasure that Hannah and Grant get from playing it is clearly evident, particularly during the pizzicato passage.
And, to conclude, Hannah and Grant take us all on a nostalgic trip to the 1940s with the jazzy, bluesy, See You soon. It’s a wonderfully sleazy way to wrap up an enchanting album and the period imagery is so vivid that it’s hard not to imagine a grainy black and white movie playing in your head as you listen. Unmatched Pair is an album that ticks a whole load of boxes!
Watch Hannah and Grant perform Beaver Island Ferry, the album’s lead single, here:
Hannah O’Brien and Grant Flick online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp / Spotify
Keep up with At The Barrier: Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram / Spotify / YouTube