Taking time on an album that is a choired taste

While touring her new record, Julie Feeney has let singers in each area pick which songs they want to work on, writes Nicki ffrench Davis

“What’s amazing is the difference in how they connect emotionally to different songs in different places”

“I had been looking into my roots. I nearly became obsessive about it during the writing of the album”

SINGER and composer Julie Feeney really is multi-talented. With a whisper, she can make a concert hall hold its collective breath; she can conduct an orchestra on a tight recording schedule; and she has been invited by Harvard Business School to talk about independent music production.

Feeney has multiple degrees in subjects that include psychoanalysis, music and media technologies, and sonology (the study of sound). Feeney has a holistic approach to songwriting and music-making. Her third album, Clocks, was released on Nov 16 and Feeney is in Ballincollig, Co Cork, tonight as part of an Irish tour.

An ex-member of the National Chamber Choir, before her solo career took off in 2005, Feeney says of the concept of the tour: “I came up with the idea of working with the best local choir possible in each area. I had orchestrated a lot, but I hadn’t done much with choral music, even though I’m an ex-professional choral singer.

“Choral music is a quality of sound I just love. I arranged 10 pieces from Clocks and let the choir in each place pick six or seven to do. It was almost an experiment, and what’s amazing is the difference in how they connect emotionally to different songs. They really latched on to a song in some places that other choirs hadn’t chosen at all. We’re working really hard to prepare. I’ve spent a full day with all of them and they are all genuinely amazing,” she says.

Clocks, which has been received with enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic, is a dazzling album of carefully sculpted songs and imaginative arrangements. Feeney says that it began to take shape after the first six months of touring her second album.

“After the first batch of shows touring Pages, my second album, the essence of what the next album was going to be began to seep in. I’m always rolling around a lot of ideas, I always have a tune and words running round in my head.

“But to have something fully formed is completely different — once you have the vibe established, the formulating begins. It’s a little more classic than the last album. You can see it in the cover. The idea is of me being a statue standing on time, very stripped back. There’s a very old feel to the paper, too. It’s my favourite album cover by far,” she says.

Feeney’s homeland of Galway anchors the album. “The pull of Galway just sort of emerged very strongly. I find it really hard to say where the essence of a bigger thing comes from. I had been looking into my roots and my family. I nearly became obsessive about it during the writing of the album, actually.

“I began to feel like I was sitting on a timeline of emotion. I felt so connected to these people and their stories. I’m not saying I can feel everything someone else feels, but I’m moulding away to let the light in,” she says.

“This album has a wider range of instruments than Pages. It’s as wide as my first album, 13 songs. It’s an interesting palette, with Indian shruti box, pedal steel guitar, some interesting percussion.”

Feeney has again drawn from the well of musicians in the Irish Chamber Orchestra for her recordings. “I had recorded the orchestral part of the last album in just six hours. For Clocks, I wanted to let more water into the orchestration, so the players could be more freed up. The first thing I recorded was the singing, which I did in Kylemore Abbey,” she says.

“I’m doing six videos for the album, I’ve shot four of them so far. I was in Cork recently, working with Justin McCarthy and Stormlight Productions on one.

“I find that I have to start with the music and it needs space to develop — visually, the videos emerge as I’m going. The last one I shot was very Coco Chanel, a kind of boyish feminine look that suits the song. Then, for the song ‘Cold Water’ I’m on a boat in a pool, and for ‘Moment’ I’m a doll. I find I can’t really explore them until I actually start to make it,” Feeney says.

* Julie Feeney will perform without choir tonight at the White Horse in Ballincollig, Co Cork. Other dates include the Pepper Canister Church, Dublin, Dec 7; Linenhall, Castlebar, Dec 10.