Album review: Elaine Howley's move to West Cork bears impressive fruit
Elaine Howley: The Distance Between Heart and Mouth.
★★★★☆
Amid spiralling rents in Cork City, The Altered Hours duo of Elaine Howley and Cathal Mac Gabhainn last year relocated to Dripsey, some 20 kilometres west of the city.
Nobody would describe the Cork commuter belt as a latter-day Arcadia: nonetheless, the quiet and calm of the countryside makes its presence felt on Howley’s impressive new solo record, The Distance Between Heart and Mouth. The Altered Hours remains a going concern and recently played a packed tent at the All Together Now festival in Waterford.
But for this extracurricular excursion, Howley steps away from the psychedelic tumult with which her band are synonymous. Instead of floor-shaking riffs and otherworldly vocals, the LP is a quiet, often introverted affair, in which Howley explores her relationship with the world and with other people.
Texturally, the Tipperary woman deploys a murky folktronica template. Silent Talk finds her cooing disconsolately against a rising tide of analogue warbles that suggest Boards of Canada or ambient groups such as Piano Magic or Kemper Norton (or even late 1970s Eno).
But her songs are tightly tethered and never sink all the way into the cloudy morass. Autumn Speak keeps its head up amidst clattering beats, while Howley enunciates the chorus in elongated vowels, as though reluctant to let the words fully escape her lips.
The Distance Between Heart and Mouth was recorded through 2019 and 2020 on a four-track recorder Howley kept at her home. It is diaristic and loosely conceptual, with Howley interrogating her shyness and her difficulty in sometimes opening up to others.
These are challenges with which many struggle and, though the music is occasionally obtuse, there is a universality to Howley’s message that it’s okay to share and to trust those closest to you. Amidst these often wintry soundscapes, what stays with you is the LP’s empathy and its warmth.
