A record you might dig deeply, especially as it starts to grow. Powerful presentation from Belfast based singer and fiddler Clare Sands.

DRONES DIALLED BACK

If music culled from the Irish tradition is now tending more to the angular and drone driven, never forget the more longstanding strand of of songs steeped in sinuous beauty, delicate melodies and an adherence more to instrumental precision. It is from this latter that Clare Sands unequivocally comes, however much her values sit alongside the angrier camp and theirs. And that voice! Well, put it this way, if the Carpenters did Rebel songs…….

Which is a slight disservice to Sands, who rallies more against any loss of civil liberties, of any sort and anywhere, her voice carrying her protestations far beyond her home. And, which may surprise, even although her family come from Cork, her current home is Belfast, in the North. Bilingual, and singing in both Irish and English, she learnt to play fiddle at the feet of her father, and is sixth generation in so doing. This is her second, full length release, third, if you include an early home-produced set of 10 years ago.

There has also been a brace of EPs, but her name has really broken on the back of live performance, renowned for the energy she can bring to a room, with just a voice, a fiddle, a guitar, a cymbal and some pedals. Here, joined by a bevy of Belfast’s finest, she takes things up a further level still.

HOPE, COLLABORATION & COMMUNITY

Anam Cara translates best as “soul friend”, and is the first track here. A gently flowing guitar embeds around her voice, before flute and fiddle weave around and between the verses. It is sometimes hard to keep pace with the seamless switch between tongues, but it is a song of hope, collaboration and community. Uillean pipes take it into a middle section that invokes the Tuatha Dé Dannan, with Tír na nÓg, the place, not the band, getting an earlier mention. With the sibling vocal of her sister, Lainey, slotting in alongside, as she does elsewhere, there is an an extra glow of warmth: “love will never die“. Cello and double bass are also present, and it is satisfying ensemble sound.

CHILLING IN INTENSITY

Os Cionn Na Scamaill does start with a sense of rudimentary drone, on what sounds like didgeridoo but is more likely fiddle, and a pitter patter of percussion. Sands repeats the words, meaning above the clouds, and it becomes a tuneful narrative, if of little meaning to my anglicised ears. A verse or two and it breaks into a pipe led canter. A higher voice and different instrumentation and it could suit the Yes album, something I’ll bet the author didn’t factor in. All these songs, by the way, are Sands’ own.

The title track follows, bursting in forcefully from the start. In turn Sands tells us “this is why we sing“, then “why we dance” and later “why we breathe“. Referencing the children of Gaza, it is a tremendous song that draws in imagery from a trio of Palestinian poets, together with lifting a snatch of the melody from Óró Sé Do Bheatha (Bhaile) for the middle eight. The chorus is chilling in intensity, repetition making it all the more effective: “They tried to bury us, didn’t know we were seeds……..“

From one endangered species to another, Curlew Song channels the voice of this declining bird, a metaphor for finding the inner fire within, and thus keeping on. The verses are shared with Ríoghnach Connolly, and there is an almost orchestral tone to the strings as they merge with the pipes. It closes on an incantation inspired by the supposed oldest poem in Irish literature. Song of Amergin. Brióngloid An Fhidléara, up next, is an instrumental, with Sands on the lower pitch of viola, accompanied by the core of the accompanying musicians. A slow jig, if that makes sense it is a good point to ponder over the material thus far.

CÚIRT AGUS SPLANC?

Next up is the jauntier Meet Me In The Garden, which starts off with the sung command to “Sing, sing, sing.” Neither the first nor last time communal song is referenced across this set, again this underlines earlier comments; no matter how worthy, few folk on the Ballydehob bus are ever to be found humming the latest drone. A short spoken word explains how this may (or not) be about Rostrevor Oakwood, where ancient oaks are protected, fighting for a precarious ongoing existence. Set to bobbing guitar, there is a Joni-esque cadence in the melody and delivery; think when Ms. Mitchell played with the Chieftains.

Another English title is Under Oak And Olive, which swiftly reveals itself to be the one about the oaks, reinforcing my sometime difficulty deciphering the aim of Sand’s arrows. It too has soaring vocal lines that again recall the Canadian singer.

Lí Ban is a duet with the up and coming singer, Barry Kerr, winner of this year’s inaugural Folk Album of the Year, with, ironically, given also the curlew reference, Curlew’s Cry. Lí Ban is the mermaid of Lough Neagh, and this is a lilting lullaby of a song, featuring also the voice of Piarás Ó Lorcáin. This leaves time only for the stripped back Beidh Grá Ann (On This Island), with Sands singing over the slightest of accompaniment, the spaces gradually filled by combined strings and woodwind. Cymbals clash atmospherically and it brings the album round full circle, Sands’ voice a clarion at the centre.

READY TO GERMINATE

I confess I wasn’t that familiar with the singer before, but this album really hits a spot and sticks there, perhaps, maybe like a seed too, growing all the while. Sean Óg Graham and Sands, together responsible for production have done a grand job, and the ranks of musicians:Stephen Loughran on flutes and whistles, Laura McFadden on cello, Conor Mallon on pipes and also whistle, Cian McGrory on guitar, Conor McCreadie on double bass and David Ryan on percussion, al perform sensitively, finding perfectly the space between unobtrusiveness and being heard. Graham supplies also additional percussion, with, besides fiddle and viola, Sands also playing some guitar. Well worth seeking out! Striking cover, too!!

Anam Cara:

Clare Sands: Website

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