Alison and Isabel Ní Chuireáin met in the summer of 2002 and forged a friendship and musical partnership that bore fruit in 2006 with the release on Osmosys Records of their album, Mise agus Ise (myself and herself). Together the pair wrote, arranged and produced this personal body of work, with the help of musician friends, near and far, and their engineer and co-producer Al Cowan. London-based photographer and friend Ken Garland captured them on film during a flying visit to Dublin.
The songs are a collection covering seminal events in Alison's life from her childhood to the many formative years spent outside Ireland, and her eventual return to her homeland in 2001. Isabel's tunes are similarly autobiographical, including two dedicated to her parents.
2007/8 brings collaborations with Dave Colohan of Agitated Radio Pilot ('World Winding Down' double album), Syd Kitchen & Mike Dickman (South African CD forthcoming), and Steven Paul Collins of The Owl Service (EP entitled 'The Fabric of Folk' due out on Static Caravan mid-July). An album of songs is written and being arranged by Greg Weeks of Espers, and Alison and Michael Tyack of Circulus are working on a song together for her solo album. A track for the new Mr Pine album, 'Rewilding', entitled 'Sleep of Ondine' has been recorded and Kevin Scott of this Canadian band is co-writing a song with Alison for the solo album. Australian rock homage (Aztec Energy) for the writer, Colin Harper's album is in the can ('Freedom & The Dream Penguin' by The Fieldmouse Conspiracy). Listen out for vox contribution on the forthcoming United Bible Studies album (The Jonah). Alison is also doing some work-in-progress tracks with the young fella in Dublin, Jonny Tennant, who she occasionally gigs with, along with Isabel, multi-instrumentalist and tunesmith, who was born under the Capricorn sign and raised in the Gaeltacht area of An Fálcarrach in Donegal. Isabel's influences are all things astrological and meteorological. Jonny Tennant plays bouzouki, bass, bodhran, vox and some kind of Celtic horn ting. Jonny & Isabel have performed on two tracks for the solo album, and Margie Wienk of Fern Knight has added gorgeous harmonium and cello. Collaborations abound, the latest being plans for a vinyl single for the little indie prog psych folk label, Fruits de Mer, working with Graeme Lockett of Head South by Weaving. Graeme and Alison have written a song together for her album.
Kathleen Ferrier, Helen Shapiro, The Beatles, Dusty Springfield, The Supremes, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Nina Leigh, Clodagh Simonds, Dave Williams, Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, Joni Mitchell the painter and musician, Sandy Denny, Yes, Mervyn Peake, Nico, Frank Zappa, Richard & Linda Thompson, Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Paul Brady, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, John Oakley-Smith, Colin Shamley, Roger Lucey, The Eagles, Weather Report, Philip Glass, Flora Purim, FLC, Garbage, Eels, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Anita O'Day, Linda Ronstadt, Manhattan Transfer, PJ Harvey, Bjork, La Bottine Souriante, Rosie Stewart, Rufus Wainright, and others who don't spring to mind right now.
Sounds Like
But the world is an amazing place, and this week I found Mise agus Ise ("Myself & Herself"), featuring the beautiful voice of Alison O'Donnell, along with Isabel Ni Chuireain. Alison was the 15-year-old sweet voice of the aforementioned Mellow Candle, and she has lost none of the magic -- in fact, I think she probably sounds even better... Although she is no longer a teenager, there is a strange youthful quality to her voice and renditions ... The lush and powerful playing of Isabel complements Alison's vocals. It is only when we listen to an album like this that we realize the essential ingredients of a magic performance. We need the lyrics and voice, but it is the arrangement and accompaniment that adds that indefinable spark to turn good into great. (Nicky Rossiter for Rambles)
Alison O'Donnell, a Dub by design, missed quite a few flights because she was at the harbour at the time. Steeped in the creation of music from her Mellow Candle days, her greatest claim to fame is the astounding ability to sing three part harmonies simultaneously. The seagulls wink whenever they hear her name. Reaching the age that a number of religions reckon is worth a good outing, she ditched the beribboned shoes and applied herself to the art of song. (Bands: Mellow Candle, Flibbertigibbet, EllaMental, Earthlings, Eishtlinn, Oeda).
Aside from the usual escapist activities, she is also intrigued by some of her ancestors who have led her a merry dance up the brick-walled garden path. She unleashed folky, rocky, jazzy, rootsy, trad sounds in 2006 with a co-conspirator, egged on by two Siamese cats. Myself and Herself can enlighten you further at www.alisonodonnell.com (also available from iTunes).
The December 2006 issue of MOJO featured a special editorial showcasing the Top 50 genre-bending folk albums of all time. “Folk rock at its most acidic and velvety. The highpoints of Swaddling Songs are amongst the most spine-tingling performances from anyone, ever. Given that they were on a major, this makes Mellow Candle's obscurity even more baffling. Irish duo Clodagh Simonds and Alison Williams' soaring harmonies on Sheep Season are backed by a full band and woodwinds, chasing back the centuries, creating something quite magical.” (BS)
The April issue of Record Collector listed the Top 100 progressive rock rarities, complete with star ratings for quality and importance. Only 15 of the 100 gained five stars, including Mellow Candle. ”An extraordinary record and a folk-prog masterpiece, lead female singers Clodagh Simonds and Alison O’Donnell harmonise beautifully over dynamic, piano-led arrangements. They hailed from Dublin and were soon picked up by Skid Row and Thin Lizzy manager Ted Carroll (later head of Ace Records). Clodagh had sung backing vocals on Lizzy’s second album, Shades of a Blue Orphanage. Sadly, Mellow Candle’s only album died a death upon release.”
The Wire August 2007. "The inconvenient truth remains that singer-songwriters such as Nick Drake, John Martyn, Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson are writing out of their own individual experience, and groups like Mellow Candle, Comus and Incredible String Band were creating entirely new work, which is the diametric opposite of the idea of folk music as the natural cumulative expression of a people. The passage of time has dimmed these distinctions and we now lazily refer to all of it as 'folk': folk rock, acid folk, free folk, freak folk, wyrd folk, etc. For the expedience of this article, the term 'British psychedelic folk' best captures the frictions between conservation and progression, pastoral and metropolitan, acoustics and electricity, homespun and visionary, that define and invigorate this fertile decade of music in Avalon." ..."Mellow Candle formed part of a fertile Dublin folk rock scene including Horslips, Tir Na Nog, and The Woods Band, but their music sounds the least 'Celtic' of all their contemporaries. Singers and former convent girls Clodagh Simonds and Alison Williams wrote most of the material, and the Gothic rural landscape of Swaddling Songs has made it an iconic record to the current folk revival (a current London club is named after it). Its magic takes time to work: one suspects the live power of this group was dispelled in the studio, but the piano and rock group format ensure the songs meander unpredictably like sheep tracks on a windblown heath, and rock hard, as on "The Poet and The Witch", "Break Your Token" and "Lonely Man". Simonds' songs, especially, are riven with crepuscular pagan atmosphere, birds of ill-omen, fabular creatures, coffins and crows. For Mellow Candle, the wilderness offers an enchanted antidote to the crushing enervation of city life: the sole lines of the last track read: "I know the Dublin pavements will be boulders on my grave".
The story of this release goes back to a brief exchange between Owl Service main man Steven Collins and Alison O'Donnell (of the legendary Irish prog-folk group Mellow Candle) on a social networking website in the Spring of 2007. "The Fabric of Folk" is a collision between two ages of folk-rock; Alison was intrigued by the sound of The Owl Service, Steven had been in awe of "Swaddling Songs" for many years and so a collaboration seemed inevitable. "Fabric..." contains two original Collins/O'Donnell compositions (one with lyrics penned by Dominic Cooper of the Straw Bear Band), a short instrumental interlude, and two traditional reworkings. The original songs bookend the EP in perfect fashion and Alison's treatment of the traditional material in between is masterful. From the ominous opening track "The Wooden Coat" to the epic finale "The Fabric of Life", the listener is taken on a journey through themes of life and death, all handled with a pathos and poignancy so rarely heard in modern folk music.
"A Fabric of Folk" will be released on CD this Summer by Static Caravan and on vinyl this Winter by Hobby-Horse
Alison, your set at the Leigh Folk Festival was superb and you were certainly a hard act for me to follow. I loved all your songs. Keep making that magical music. Dennis
Death and the Maiden,Players Theatre, Trinity23rd June to 5th July, 8pmAdmis E18 On Thursday 26th of June, International Day Against Torture, the performance will be followed by a post-show discussion, with panel members from Amnesty International and Spirasi.
Hi Alison and thanks for the add from the world's smallest prog/psych label - Fruits de Mer Records. Hope you enjoy our first single - Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake meets Van de Graaf Generator's Theme One - playing now at www. myspace. com/fdmer & www. myspace. com/fdmer2 (no, we don't know why either).
Good luck with your new work, hope we can keep in touch.
Hey Alison! Yeah I think I really over did it on Saturday I was wired! Well maybe not... one does need to let ones hair down once in a while. Thanks for being so thorough with your adding my stuff!
Hi Alison...That's some review Swaddling Songs got in this issue of Uncut...Didn't realise they had so many stars!....Must've been saving them for you...L x.
Sliante Alison! Such a pleasure to meet you last night & to sing together a bit (from afar!) I hope our paths cross soon, and that we sing more closely the next time! Beautiful music here, it's a pleasure to know you Cheers! slean leat Amy
I've really enjoyed listening to 'Seals in the Sound', it reminds me of my time working in the Heritage Centre in Dalkey and it's environs. Let me know if your doing any gigs in Dublin - I'd like to hear you live. All the best, Ian.
The story of this release goes back to a brief exchange between Owl Service main man Steven Collins and Alison O'Donnell (of the legendary Irish prog-folk group Mellow Candle) on a social networking website in the Spring of 2007. "The Fabric of Folk" is a collision between two ages of folk-rock; Alison was intrigued by the sound of The Owl Service, Steven had been in awe of "Swaddling Songs" for many years and so a collaboration seemed inevitable. "Fabric..." contains two original Collins/O'Donnell compositions (one with lyrics penned by Dominic Cooper of the Straw Bear Band), a short instrumental interlude, and two traditional reworkings. The original songs bookend the EP in perfect fashion and Alison's treatment of the traditional material in between is masterful. From the ominous opening track "The Wooden Coat" to the epic finale "The Fabric of Life", the listener is taken on a journey through themes of life and death, all handled with a pathos and poignancy so rarely heard in modern folk music.
