Sound of Solace: Irish cello sensation Patrick Dexter on bringing his music to the world
Patrick Dexter playing one of his tunes from his cottage in Co Mayo. He's releasing his debut album.
An empty sky. A rumpled mountain flowing into a lake. And a mournful cello. Such are the ingredients that have catapulted a Mayo-based former music teacher to global prominence. And which set him on the road to releasing a collection of melancholic compositions, which, during the lockdown and in the bleary months of early parenthood, helped make sense of a strange and frightening new world.
“At first it was a huge experience and shocking to know the numbers of streams were in the million and tens of millions,” says Patrick Dexter, from his home in south Mayo, near the northern shore of Killary Harbour, as he prepares to release debut album Solace.
“It was a strange feeling,” says the Dublin-born musician who moved to the West several years ago after returning from a period travelling in Asia. “I was reassured. This was something that was helping me to get through the pandemic, in those early days especially.”
Dexter had built a global following with the stunning, stripped-down YouTube videos which served as an inspiration for Solace (he recorded the tracks for the LP in a single sitting, which some harmonies added later). In the clips, which he began posting in the surreal spring of 2020, he sits outside his modest cottage, framed by Ben Gorm over his shoulder. Cradling his cello, closing his eyes, he plays. It is extraordinary– and a number of these pieces are reprised on Solace, which comes to streaming on April 8, having already been released in physical form (the first run of CDs is sold out, to his surprise and joy).
The YouTube performances also feature bared-boned and deeply raw covers of standards such as The Foggy Dew and The Parting Glass. And it was the huge public response to that material which, in particular, led to all sort of strange opportunities and encounters.
Dexter was, for instance, interviewed on CNN. And he gave a live-stream concert as part of a virtual St Patrick’s Day meeting between Joe Biden and Micheál Martin in 2021 (he doesn’t know if Biden watched but likes to think he did – drawn by their shared connection to Mayo, land of Biden’s forefathers).
“I was sharing what I felt was therapeutic or cathartic to me. The cello – the sound of the cello and what the cello can do – is a very special, particular way of communicating. And then you’ve got the landscape. These two things for me have the dichotomy of being both incredibly beautiful, with the ability to lift your heart, but also mournful with a kind of melancholy. And that's a special place for me and a place where I feel a lot of comfort, even though it's confusing and contradictory.
The lockdown changed all our lives. For Dexter and his wife the upheaval was particularly fraught. As a music teacher, the great shutdown deprived him of the ability to make a living. And then his wife lost her job. Topping it off, they’d recently had a baby.
“The album is dedicated to my daughter. She was on the way when the pandemic first broke. I was out of work, my wife was pregnant. That shaped our whole experience. We were living in a remote spot. Both of our [jobs] ended abruptly. And there's so much excitement and nervousness about a child on the way.”
He’s delighted to have found an audience. And to have had an opportunity to showcase the cello. The instrument was dismissed for decades as less glamorous adjacent to the violin. However, having featured prominently in the theme music to Game of Thrones and elsewhere, it is now having a moment. And, in misty Mayo, Dexter has contributed to its hour in the sun.
“It has become popular with soundtrack music. You'll see it used in pop. And all sorts of places where you would never have expected. When I was growing up, it was an instrument tucked in the back. It was about making everyone else look good. You don't ever have to lead the melody. That is such a shame because the cello has something special about it. And perhaps this is why it works so well with emotive subject matter like you might have in a drama or in a TV show."
It has the quality of mimicking some of the stronger emotions, he says. “What's the most emotionally-engaging experience you can have? It's probably a deep conversation with someone you love. The cello, looked at in a more objective scientific way, shares the same textures as the human voice. There's part of your mind that engages with it.
"It is not just your conscious mind. Your lizard mind is picking up little bits of it that makes you think, ‘Wow, I feel drawn in. I feel engaged’. This is more than a sound. This is more than music. I always felt that very strongly when I played cello.”
- Solace releases on streaming services Friday April 8
