The iconic/legendary Irish band’s latest release, Donegal, is another victim to my by now too sporadic listening to and writing about music. The album came out months ago and you may have heard it and read about it… but I really need to put in a few words.
So, I only listened to it carefully today and had to spin its predecessor, The Gap Of Dreams (2018), immediately after to confirm my feelings.
And feelings never lie, do they? Indeed at least to my ears, compared to many of their albums, Donegal sounds more varied, more colorful, more energetic and even just slightly expansionist in that here the band pushes the stylistic envelope just a notch.
I admit I found The Gap of Dreams a tiny bit predictable and safe, even though enjoyable, and in comparison I sense more… life, flor want of a better word, in Donegal. And look at that Roy Lichtenstein-ish hip cover art – a definite new look that preserves only the Altan logo.
Donegal has approximately equal servings of trad style and more modified, but not wantonly modernized, approaches. The trad tunes like The Donegal Selection Set are joyful and fresh, far from any “yes we’re playing Irish trad music brilliantly” feel. They have a live session feel to them in the best possible sense, and I enjoy the heck out of all of them!
And then there’s those tunes that come across to me as having a “let’s have some fun with this” angle. I love the opening The Yellow Tinker, a slow reel that sounds like a beautiful and rich musical box (not in any mechanical sense!) rather than a trad tune; the arrangement and the production has the instruments twinkle and glitter and reflect some imaginary light as the tune goes on. Absolute magic that literally stopped me on my tracks as it played.
That one is followed by Liostáil mé le Sáirsint, a song that swings along with a bouncy, gentle shuffle not always associated with Celtic music. And that is then followed by the aforementioned Donegal Selection set, the first decidedly trad moment on the album.
So the opening triad already demonstrates that on this outing, Altan are as vivid, vibrant, imaginative as they have ever been – or more so, even. In any case, Donegal is in my books one of their best – if not even THE best (gasp!) – outing in all their stunning career.
As more evidence, I bring to the fore the absolutely lovely reading of Zoë Conway’s Faoiseamh a Gheobhadsa, with an arrangement and soundscape I can only call “dreamy Celtic”, whatever the heck that may mean. And also The Barley and the Rye, played here as a languid jazz waltz, flowing along like a slow, wide river on a warm day.
It’s almost useless to mention the perfect playing of these wonderful musicians, but of course I mention it. And I think Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s voice and presence and performance are just priceless, to me she is in better form here than on The Gap of Dreams.
The one concrete difference between the two albums is fiddler Claire Friel joining the band after Gap. She is younger than the others and, who knows, maybe it’s she whose recharged the entire team. But that’s inconsequential, as Donegal is a shining success in every department.
FolkNotes 