Album Review: Fionn Regan, Meeting of the Waters

Fionn Regan has been rather quiet of late, taking time out from music to explore various other creative endeavours, including painting and conceptual art. But his first album in five years finds the Wicklow native, if not reinventing himself, then certainly in experimental mode.
The album’s title refers to Regan’s current main influence and inspiration – electronic music – and the clash between it and his folk roots. The songs however were mostly written in rural isolation, halfway up a mountain near the actual Meeting of The Waters in Wicklow’s Vale of Avoca. Not surprisingly, the natural world looms large; ‘Cormorant Blue’ combines acoustic plucking and layers of spacey textures, while ‘Turn The Skies Of Blue On’ comes across like a post-modern Nick Drake.
The title track immediately showcases his two contrasting styles – a drone-like meditation with a hypnotic electro pulse, and Regan’s vocals soaring above it all. A bigger, more expansive rock sound is incorporated on ‘Book Of The Moon’, while ‘Babushka Yai Yai’ sounds nothing like the title might suggest (and is certainly not a Kate Bush cover!) A fast-paced, sub two-minute number with buzz-saw guitars and distorted vocals, it won’t endear Regan to either the singer-songwriter crowd or daytime radio programmers.
In contrast, the chiming indie guitars and accessible melody on ‘Cape Of Diamonds’ have a sort of melodramatic, Elbow-meets-The-Zombies effect. Elsewhere, the plaintive ‘Euphoria’ is the closest thing here to the Regan of yore. Throughout, his painstaking attention to detail and use of sonic flourishes make for an intriguing and satisfying listen.