Stunning collaborative showcase from Varo that shines equally on the hosting duo and the plethora of guests.

Release Date : 9th May 2025

Label : Self-Released

Format : CD / vinyl / digital

Fine fettle

If any proof were needs that the Irish tradition is in fine fettle and in the middle of a further wave of popular acclaim, revising, revisioning and rewriting the repertoire for an audience hungry to re-engage, this is it. Or, rather, even more proof. If Lankum have led the way, it has been in the hands of artists like Lisa O’Neill, John Joseph Flynn, Landless and Lemoncello, amongst many, many more, to carry the gauntlet, spreading the word still wider. VARO might seem unlikely amabassadors, being two women from, respectively, France and Italy.

RECOGNISABLE BUT NOT ENTIRELY FAMILIAR

Lucie Azconaga (from France) and Consuelo Nerea Breschi (from Italy), are both now resident in Dublin, and were each drawn there by their shared love of Irish music. Meeting up in 2015, with similar but different backgrounds, largely in the worlds of classical, french folk and jazz, they gelled over the stronger love for the intricacies of Irish traditional melodies, which, both being predominantly fiddle players, gave them a unique take on that tradition, weaving their complex mix of styles into their playing. Everything is recognisable, yet nothing is entirely familiar.

This, their second release, follows on from the eponymous VARO of 2020, and takes a different tack. If that album was more to present their intuitive and observational personal approach, this time they provide a cosy and comforting bed for a range of their peers to project a collaborative vision. The template is around songs and tunes, all old and often venerated, and the importance of keeping them alive and keeping them vital. Many of the participants have a strong track record of collaboration, that being one of the cardinal current features of the Dublin scene, rarely it proving a surprise to see those same names joyously adding to the communal poteen. So dip your cup, let’s drink it all in.

DE facto drone

it is with a now de facto drone of fiddles and cello that the set starts, with tight vocal harmonies intoning what becomes a majestic renaissance gavotte; I’m thinking possibly the court of the sun king. The mood, for those with long memories and heavy shelves, is very Malicorne, a glorious and unexpected flavour. The vocal guests are Lankum’s Cormac Mac Diarmada and Ruth Clinton from Landless, each too toting their chosen instruments. With VARO adding their voices and fiddles to the fray, it makes for a stunning opening statement. (Take good note of the Mac Diarmada/Clinton combo. Together they work as Poor Creature, with an album of their own due soon, in July.)

MOOD TRANSFORMED

The harp of Alannah Thornborough transforms the mood, for track two, to madrigal, with pizzicato fiddles and bouzouki filling out the sound. Thornborough’s voice has that resiny quality that seems to come with Hibernian genes, a perfect foil for the more glacial harmonies of Azconaga and Breschi. Keening moans then fill the air, as Inni-K and Libby McCrohan pick up the baton.

A more uptempo track: Heather On The Moor, is allowed to eventually unfold, awash with McCrohan’s tinkling bouzouki and what sounds like, but probably isn’t, harpsichord. I’ll swear there is the gentle lowing of uillean pipes, deeper down in the mix. It is no surprise to learn the canny production is in the hands of John ‘Spud’ Murphy, surely the busiest man in Ireland. As an aside, it may be worth setting aside a budget for the bevy of new names this release is drawing attention to. Three songs in and I have had to visit Bandcamp three times.

Rich and rewarding broth

Now a familiar voice, with the hollow boom of John Joseph Flynn, seen so recently with the Pogues. He tackles Green Grows The Laurel with relish, swapping verses with VARO, both separately and together. As all three voices convene for the chorus, it is a rich and rewarding broth. A slow melancholy perfuses through the minimalist bombast the musicians manage to convey. It’s bloody gorgeous, especially as the acompaniment drops away, for a moment of acapella. With a coda swept in on (more) moans, drones and possibly recorders*, the song extends to near six and half minutes and not a moment too long.

Anna Mieke is another name new to me, her voice, which, when paired with the duo, conjuring up a more brittle and angular concoction. Without backing, Open The Door has a witchy sound, with a sense of eavesdropping some private ceremony. The vibe is then completely altered, as Work Life Out To Keep Life In becomes the workers march, all red in tooth and politics, that this 19th century song evokes. To discover Ewan MacColl sang too this bothy ballad comes as no surprise, although what the staunch traditionalist would make of this version may be open to question, but I would hope favourably. Niamh Bury adds her voice, with Angus MacAmhlaigh and Alex Borwick also present to add stirring cello and brass, the flags and banners almost visible. (And praise be it was Bandcamp Friday as I first listened to yet another new voice to me…….)

Boggy Unreconstructed gargle

Bolstered by the change in style, Lemoncello come in with a clash of pizzicating strings, curiously Oriental in effect, with a touch of Lisa O’Neill in the cadence of the lead singer. As the cello takes to the front, once more a processional feel is gifted the steadfast arrangement. The boggy unreconstructed gargle of Junior Brother is next for the showing, as unexpected a sound as was Flynn earlier on.

And he seems not to be the rapper his name has always suggested, nor anything to do with the Move Your Feet hitmakers, being rather a singer of traditional songs, with a voice pitched somewhere between Ronnie Drew and the Hendy brothers of The Mary Wallopers. And another bloody trip to Bandcamp. The setting for his voice is a veritable fever dream of anguished strings and brass, the song the old faithful, Skibbereen, the outcome akin to Tom Waits transplanted to Tipperary.

MORE LANKUM

The second member of Lankum to be enrolled, Ian Lynch pipes up for Sweet Liberty, over a stentorian wheeze of organ, with strings drawn out into all necessary drone. That’s his vocal pipes and his uillean ones. This anthemic song is delivered as if for his life, the overall sound redolent of the latter hours of a lengthy wake, where all have drunk themselves back to sobriety. This sets well the stage for the closing number, which trips back into the ethereal weightlessness of some of the earlier tracks, with massed female harmonies garlanded with moaning of a mystical measure. This is Alone, which features both Branwen and Slow Moving Clouds, yet another artist and still another band on the richly fertile musical landscape of Ireland’s capital city. Nyckelharpa, from Slow Moving Cloud’s Aki adds a delicious extra texture.

Exhilarating these ears

Yes, I am rather taken with this project, and with VARO. Not quite ever what you may expect, even after this read, it is also as fair a pitch at what it is that makes Irish music currently just so fine, exhilarating these ears with the horizon free ability to meld tradition with technology, the mystical with the engineered, and the ancient with the modern. But, as you listen, be careful with what else you find yourself buying…….

I bloody love John Joseph, so can’t resist his song from the set, which, handily, shows also what some of the sounds* are provided by.

VARO online : Website / Facebook / x / Instagram

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