GARRY Ó BRIAIN

Fís Carolan’s Dream (Gael Linn)

Anyone with an allergy to Carolan: just a tincture of Garry Ó Briain twice daily for a couple of days and you’ll be hungrily ferreting through traditional music archives in search of the original. Ó Briain is a multi instrumentalist beyond compare. Long known for his pristine production skills (hear Seamus McGuire’s The Wishing Tree for a taste) and the excellent company he keeps (Máirtín O’Connor, Len Graham, Jackie Daly and James Keane, to name but a few), he’s now casting an ear back to the music of the 17th Century.

Fís Carolan’s Dream is yet another product of the Ó Briain midas touch. A reworking of 13 lesser-known Carolan tunes, this album is indeed dreamlike in its execution, a reverie of melodies that sit together like long lost siblings, marvelling at their likenesses, and their astounding differences.

The title track, ‘Carolan’s Dream’, is, ironically, one of the few tracks of disputed lineage. Whatever its parentage, it basks in the warm glow of Ó Briain’s mandocello, guitar and keyboards, with just the right shaft of light creeping though the strings of Nollaig Casey’s violin.

The remaining dozen tracks fire on all cylinders, a musical treasure of strings of all sizes. The delicacy of Laoise O’Kelly’s harp, saved for only two songs, (‘The Nugents’ and ‘Captain Higgins’), stands out as a labour of love and of attention. Nowhere is Briain tempted to slip into autopilot, to smother the proceedings in the obvious. Instead he lets the tunes dictate the pace, calling on the wonderfully medieval mandocello (fashioned by his own hand) to lead the posse.

There’s no mistaking the scholarship that’s gone into Fís Carolan’s Dream either. Each track is meticulously documented; its seed, breed and generation is lovingly illuminated. So what you get is a sociomusical meditation that conjures images of another time and place, when music fulfilled so many roles in the culture of the time.

Divine music from a truly inspiring musician. Straight to the top of the class, Mr. Ó Briain.

Siobhán Long