Reviews

Live music: Masters of Tradition

Bantry House, Co Cork

The closing concert of West Cork Music’s Masters of Tradition festival emphasised what has made it so popular. No drinks, no chatter, no battling for the audience’s ear. You could have heard a pin drop at any point in the performances.

Curator and fiddle-player, Martin Hayes, had assembled a motley crew of traditional musicians, from Ireland and abroad. Over the previous week, the festival hosted performers as diverse as the Pipers Union and the Voice Squad, Denis Carey on piano and Leo MacNamara on flute, and banjo players, Peter and Angeline Carberry.

Many returned for the closing concert, playing beneath the chandelier in the grand living-room at Bantry House.

Hayes was joined by guitarist and long-time sidekick, Dennis Cahill, for his own performance. He was a genial and easy-going host, less concerned with formality than with ensuring that the ambience was conducive to the enjoyment of beautiful music.

Hayes introduced harpist, Triona Marshall, from Portlaoise. Marshall, who has performed with the Chieftains for the past ten years, played a suite of gentle tunes.

Cleek Schrey and Stephanie Coleman followed. The fiddlers, from Virginia and Chicago, respectively, performed a mix of Irish trad and Americana — it is often difficult to see where one ends and the other begins.

The performance by Uileann piper, Mikie Smith, who honed his skills at the Pipers’ Club in Dublin, was a highlight of the evening. Smith demonstrated the full spectrum of sounds that can be coaxed from the instrument.

Among the tunes he played was ‘O’Sullivan the Great’, which commemorates the Long March by O’Sullivan Bere, from Bantry Bay to Leitrim, in the winter of 1602/3. Smith remarked on the surprisingly cheerful nature of the air, adding that it is also known as ‘I Won’t Be A Nun’.

Hayes brought all the performers back on stage at the end, for a final, triumphant suite of tunes.

This year’s outing was the 11th Masters of Tradition, and, judging by the sold-out concerts, the event has found its niche as surely as have West Cork Music’s festivals of chamber music and literature.

Star Rating: 4/5

Live music: Low

Whelan’s, Dublin

By Ed Power

At a time of unprecedented upheaval in music, Minnesota ‘dream-core’ band Low strike a welcome note of consistency. Since the late ’90s Alan Sparhawk and wife Mimi Parker have plied the same sad, intense sound, a cross, of sorts, between the woozy shoe-gaze genre and Neil Young’s wistful Americana. Remarkably, they’ve done so without any noticeable dip in quality: this year’s The Invisible Way may be their tenth album, but their approach remains remarkably fresh.

A sort of sad, star-crossed White Stripes, Sparhawk hugs the far left of the stage, grimacing as he manipulates his guitar. In the centre, standing behind her drums, Parker is at once tortured and other-worldly: her voice is a beautiful coo yet there is pain amid the sweetness. Steve Garrington crouches at a keyboard, occasionally reaching for a bass guitar.

Musically, Low are a constant swirl of melancholy. Typically a track opens with a droning Sparhawk solo, to which Parker will contribute soft percussive curlicues while their falsettos intertwine. Some of their material veers on indulgent: the 12 minute opener ‘Plastic Cup’, for instance, suggests shoe-gaze ‘My Bloody Valentine’ playing at the wrong speed.

However, their best songs are transcendent. From their finest album, The Great Destroyer, Monkey culminates in a cathartic din; the gentle, lulling ‘California’, on the other hand, demonstrates that Sparhawk and Parker can write a straight forward soft rock ballad.

Parker and Garrington appear to be enjoying themselves, but Sparhawk is an intense presence. In the early 2000s he had a breakdown mid-tour and the group went on hiatus. He has since sought help and, by all accounts, his demons are safely contained. Nonetheless, there’s an edge to his singing and his playing. That’s the secret ingredient in Low’s music too — it is very pretty and surprisingly melodic but, amidst the dreamy hush, are hints of something bleak and chilling.

Star rating: 4/5