Daughter Of Lir

MARY McLAUGHLIN “Daughter Of Lir” (Rowan Records)

It’s not Mary McLaughlin’s fault that her album arrives in the wake of a virtual epidemic of worthy solo singers from the Celtic folk/trad background – from Fiona Kennedy to Sonny Condell and a truck-load of others – all vying for the same market and some merely duplicating each other in terms of subject matter, vocal style, instrumentation, predictability of approach and overall sound. Indeed it is remarkable that, in spite of the considerable commercial and artistic success of both Clannad and Enya, few others have been inspired or even tempted to tread a similar path, preferring to stick to the more mainstream approach as personified best by Mary Black

But McLaughlin’s new age tendencies, especially in the opening tracks ‘Sealwoman’ and ‘Yundah’, may help distinguish her from the more mundane of the pack and give her the commercial edge which will, one hopes, allow her to explore at length the upper reaches of the territories from which she sends us a mere postcard on this, her debut album. One should applaud McLaughlin for having the artistic courage to step off that over-trodden path into once-forbidden land and one only wishes she had done it on more than just a handful of tunes.

In terms of their overall sound the tracks on Daughter Of Lir break down either into new age folk meets ethnic Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel (without the latter’s bombast), as in the captivatingly hypnotic ‘Eyes Of Africa’, and other songs of a more traditional persuasion such as ‘Bring The Peace’. Too much mixing of genres can be a dangerous activity at the onset of one’s recording career but her attempt to balance traditional sensibilities with new age technology works quite naturally and rewards repeated listening.

The Omagh-born McLaughlin has a powerfully emotive voice and displays an easy mastery of a variety of instruments, including guitar and cello, but her strength lies in her ability to craft songs steeped in Celtic mysticism without sounding twee. The sparse use of vocal harmonies and instrumentation may have been the result of budgetary restrictions but are no less effective for that, especially on ‘The Gift Of Freedom’ where her vocal inflexions are reminiscent of Robin Williamson and the synthesised hand-clap rhythms help the track reach the parts few folk songs touch.

From time to time, as on the somewhat unremarkable title track, one begins to feel her scuttling back into safe folk-song mode. ‘Motherland’, rescued mainly by Steafan Hannigan’s pipes, evokes similar feelings of herewegoagain, but those concerns are often compensated for by McLaughlin’s use of modern recording techniques through which, for example, she breathes new dimensions into the Hebridean folk song ‘Yundah’ and ‘Sealwoman’. Her vocal performance throughout is flawless and on the reprise of ‘Sealwoman’ brought Altan’s Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh to mind.

The album’s version of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’ is a timely reminder of a writer who was at least a couple of decades ahead of his time, and ‘Trying To Forget’ could be used as a demonstration model for its compact arrangement and the spell-binding precision harmonies that encourage the proverbial follicular perpendicularity. But ‘Eyes Of Africa’ is still the one that makes the entire project worth the effort.

• Jackie Hayden