Isolated lockdown musings take on real shape.  Album #3 from Austria-born, Sligo based Claudia Schwab is a unique blend of Austro-Irish sounds, tinged with Indian exotica.

Release Date: Out Now

Label: Self Release (Bandcamp)

Formats: CD / Digital

IGNORING BOUNDARIES

Claudia Schwab is a Sligo-based, Austrian, violinist/ singer/ yodeler/ loop artist and composer and, If you reckon that there’s potential in a CV like that for the production of some interesting, unique, sound, then you’d be right. 

Folk-inspired, Claudia’s music ignores boundaries such as tradition, culture and convention, merging – as it does – aspects of Irish and Austrian music and Indian Classical traditions.  The envelope-pushing doesn’t stop there, either; Claudia’s strong, bright vocals are supplemented by the conventional – violin, piano, keyboards and accordion – and the decidedly unconventional – whistling kettles, wooden drawers, coffee cups, nuclear alarms and Indian prayers.  It all adds up to a collection of songs that are guaranteed to be unlike anything you’ve ever heard, from anyone, ever.

ON THE HEELS

Went To Walk is Claudia’s third solo album, following – not unnecessarily quickly – on the heels of her previous offerings: Amber Sands (2014) and Attic Mornings (2017).  But don’t let those lengthy gaps between album releases lull you into the belief that she spends her time idly…  not a bit of It.  In 2019, she was commissioned to write for the National Concert Hall in collaboration with STF and she’s a consummate winner of awards, including a 2019 Next Generation Bursary Award from the Irish Arts Council and a 2020 Hubert Von Goisern Fönderpreis. 

When she isn’t performing solo, Claudia can spotted within the ranks of any number of other equally enterprising outfits, including her own Claudia Schwab Quintet, Plúrín na mBan (featuring Cathy Jordan and Irene Buckley), Los Hostes (with Matija Solce and Aleš Zorec), Trio Hupsala (with Johannes Bär and Vinzenz Härtel), The Irish Gamelan Orchestra, The Kate Young Quintet and Cathy Jordon’s Crankie Island Song Project.

WENT TO WALK

Went to Walk was actually released in July 2024 but it’s only recently come to our notice – hence the tardy review (apologies for that, Claudia!).  Many of the songs featured here started life during the solitude of lockdown and feature Claudia’s musings on such topics as: unrequited love, the yearning to be left alone and diverse “what if” scenarios of re-crafting our lifestyles. 

The album is dominated, overwhelmingly, by Claudia’s own input – compositionally, vocally, instrumentally and technically – but she’s not entirely alone; she was joined in the studio by Jos Kelly (keyboards), Matija Solce (accordion) and Michael McGoldrick (flutes and tin whistle) who all help out on a couple of tracks and there are also remote contributions from Slovenian accordionist Dejan Lapanja and field recordings from Claudia’s travels across the Indian subcontinent.

By now, you’ll have got the idea.  Went To Walk isn’t an album that you should approach with any preconceptions.

SOARING CRESCENDOS

Claudia spent much of lockdown in various forest, coastal and mountain refuges and opening track, What If is one of several songs born during those sojourns of isolation.  Claudia’s direct, searing vocal, backed by plucked violin strings, initially shocks, then lures the listener.  Mellowness creeps in as Claudia provides her own vocal harmonies and the instrumentation broadens.  It’s a song that, it’s fair to suspect, only Claudia Schwab could produce and it’s the perfect scene-setter for the music to come.

A choir of birdsong and the sound of flowing water (recorded at Ritigala, a Sri Lankan monastery) provide a placid setting for the temple chants of Shavanabelagola, before another burst of Claudia’s sparkling pizzicato violin introduces the album’s wistful title track.  Released as a single in May 2023, the song captures the parting dialogue between two lovers.  The baroque feel of the song builds as Jos and Matija add their keyboard and accordion parts and Claudia switches from plucking to bowing her instrument as her vocals soar to a crescendo.

A GLOBAL FEEL

The whistling kettle makes its appearance – alongside Michael’s flutes and whistles – as an integral feature of the intriguing Jodlphase.  Inspired by the phasing experiments of American composer Steve Reich, the sprightly tune is dominated by Claudia’s spacy yodels, with a result that manages to evoke both the open spaces of the High Alps and the rushy glens of the Emerald Isle.

The flavours of India make their return via the deep, resonant, tones of Claudia’s violin for the dramatic, slow-building, Under Water, before Claudia returns, once more to her lockdown contemplations for Stray Birds, the closest thing on the album to what might be considered a ‘conventional’ ballad.  Claudia’s lyrics are reflective and her voice is contemplative and subdued as she recalls the “grey men smoking time” from the text of Michael Ende’s 1973 fantasy novel, Momo, which Claudia’s mother would often read to her at bedtime.

A frantic jig on Claudia’s violin and a more subdued tune played on musical glasses provide the setting for Stop the Clocks – basically, a collection of interview snippets in which local Sligo people recount their lockdown experiences, including the things they missed during that strange period.  The piece brings the ups and downs of lockdown – the positives as well as the negatives – right back into perspective and, in an odd way, achieves what is, perhaps, the most constructive review of the COVID years that I’ve yet to hear.

IMAGINATIVE RHYTHMS

The imaginative rhythms to Ois Z’Vü are provided, variously, by a wooden drawer, a crunched spinach bag, samples of space and nuclear alarms, Claudia’s front door, a bulldog attacking a tree and Claudia’s granny’s pendulum.  The song is written in Claudia’s native Austrian dialect and the title translates (I think…) as something along the lines of: “Hey – You Saw.”  Claudia’s voice is delightfully warm as she, once again, provides her own harmonies and, alongside those rhythms – all added with the utmost discretion – Claudia’s soft piano accompaniment is all that the song requires.

The brief, atmospheric chant, Ek Ong Kar, is an open invitation to listeners to allow their minds to wander – but Claudia has a note of caution to offer before they do so: “[Be] careful when listening to this one!  I came across this powerful set of words on recent travels in India.  Apparently, everything you think about while listening [to] or sounding them will become a reality.  In the background you can hear a fan and prayers, two continuous sound companions throughout my travels.”  And that’s a statement – and this is a short passage of sound – that encapsulates much of what Went to Walk is all about, if you ask me…

CROSSING NEW BOUNDARIES

And Claudia has chosen the perfect means of bringing this singular album to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion.  Violin and multi-tracked harmony vocals lend a feel that is wholly Irish to the comforting How Long, a song that brings us all back to Earth in the gentlest way possible.  Went To Walk crosses boundaries that, I suspect, have never been breached before.  It isn’t always an easy listen but, then again, the best albums seldom are.  Claudia Schwab’s lockdown musings have taken a real shape.

Watch the official video to Went To Walk – the album’s title track and lead single – below:

Claudia Schwab online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp

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