Music for the solstice

Cúinne an Ghiorria by Colm Mac Con Iomaire formed an interesting sound track to this year's winter solstice. The fiddler began his musical career with Kíla and is also a member of The Frames. His solo album draws on traditional influences but with distinctly Philip Glass-type moments that often gives a contemporary classical feel.
Loops of sound gradually mutate and overlap to create a hypnotic soundscape with sometimes just the barest hint of a traditional air.
It reminded me at bit of Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh's album Where the One Eyed Man is King where he also stripped back all flourishes to create contemporary-sounding pieces that often had a mere passing nod to tradition.
Mac Con Iomaire's former band Kíla were involved in a project earlier this year with French composer Bruno Coulais which is being tipped for an Oscar.
The Secret of Kells is the soundtrack to an animated feature film. Kíla take second billing to Coulais but and the contribution is mostly as backing musicians.
The album combines elements of Irish trad with contemporary classical and monastic chanting to create an intriguing soundscape.
At times it reminded me a bit of Zbigniew Preisner score for the film Three Colours Blue and at others it was pure Kila.

Kíla - Féile An Earraraigh

Each of the musicians who make up Kíla could hold an audience enthralled and sometimes it is a shame that their individual musicianship is lost in the wall of sound that dominates their concerts.
Not that the audience minded on Friday night at the Marquee outside Kelly’s Cellars in Belfast with many happy to leap around the place.
In a group of seven people in which four play traditional lead instruments – whistle, flute, uilleann pipes and fiddle – it is perhaps strange that the instrumental sound that defines them comes from the bodhran player Ronan Ó Snodaigh, who also takes on most of the vocals.
His drumming style is as individualistic as his singing voice with both owing more to tribal ceremonies of Australian Aborigines or North American Indians than Irish tradition.
He sings as Gaeilge (in Irish) in a staccato, almost rap like delivery while his drumming would cause an enemy tribe charging into an attack to stop short, do an about turn and run for the hills.
Ronan’s brother Colm played flute while a third Ó Snodaigh sibling, Rossa, swapped between mandolin and whistle and sometimes probably even played them both at the same time, for this is a multi-skilled band who seem to change instruments with songs.
Even Kíla’s only female member, Dee Armstrong, took a turn at bashing the drum kit and various bongos.
Lance and Brian Hogan on guitar and bass also took turns at percussion duties while Uilleann piper Eoin Dillon unstrapped his pipes for some acrobatics.
At one point all the group members abandoned their instruments to chant a backing to Ronan’s bodhran and lead vocal on one of their best known songs, ‘Bí An’.
Kíla often build their sound into a crescendo, distorting their instruments through various effects pedals in a sonic ensemble in which you struggle to distinguish what is flute, fiddle or pipes – although always through it all is that pounding Ó Snodaigh bodhran.
As a quick listen to any of their albums will confirm, Kíla’s members can all slow down and show off their individual instrumental techniques but in live situations they seem to have little appetite for such finesse and their aim seems to bombard their audience with a full-on aural assault.
You’ll never hear anyone say shhhh at a Kíla gig.
The band have a good website with some tracks and video footage at kila.ie.