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Review: 'O'Neill,Damian'
'An Crann'   

-  Label: 'Dimple Discs/Bandcamp'
-  Genre: 'Ambient' -  Release Date: '25.10.22.'-  Catalogue No: 'Dee Dee LP21/CD21'

Our Rating:
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Launch event for Damian O'Neill's new album An Crann, at the Social, where they played part of the album, as he had a discussion with Ann Scanlon. This allowed Damian to explain the inspiration for his lockdown album. Recorded at home in his Loft studio, it is mainly solo with the help and assistance of his wife and daughter, as well as a few musical friends including the mixing skills of Paul Tipler.

The album is named after An Crann or The Tree which is an organization that worked to allow people to share their experiences during the Irish troubles, to hopefully work towards peace and reconciliation. Damian made clear that sensibly, he is for a united Ireland with no borders on the island, also that Brexit has made clear just how important that is, as a goal for the Irish people.

The photo on the cover of the album was taken by his daughter Rosie is of a Hawthorne tree.

The discussion also took in his career with The Undertones and what a thrill it was to go on Top Of The Pops despite the bands lack of sartorial elegance. He also worried that wearing a black arm band for the memory of Bobby Sands, after his death by hunger strike, when they played It's Gonna Happen might have had a bad effect, but most of the rest of the band refused to wear the arm bands, so it wasn't as controversial as it might have been. Through to the fun they had touring the USA with The Clash as well as tales of hanging out with Helen O'Hara of Dexy's Midnight Runners.

He also spoke a bit about That Petrol Emotion, the fact that the bands have a 7 cd Box set out called Every Beginning Has A Future An Anthology 1984-1994 (Edsel Records) and how much fun he had with the band, having partied with some of the members back in the day, they were loads of fun and a great live band. Although Damian reckoned all the groupies only wanted Steve Mack.

The album opens with Mas O Menos that has long tones on the organ, the guitar works around a central figure before dappled shimmers, the glockenspiel and hey hey's with a bass and tambourine breakdown that's deep down in the mix. The title means More Or less In English and has a french influence according to Damian.

Malin Head Imminent opens with some running water, a slow acoustic guitar with keyboards that build and fall, as the floaty voices that are deeply hidden in the mix. This quite bucolic tune is about Damian's childhood memories of summer holidays, it has a video by Marry Waterson.

Tune For The Derry Ones has almost Chinese guitars with pensive vocal calls with warm tones, a dream melody about the Derry City football ban and Damian's experiences with John Clifford while playing for Tri Star FC as a kid, this is dedicated to Maeve O'Neill.

A Quare Visitation (Belfast '65) is led by the bass and Tambourine, as some funkily pensive guitar comes in, slowly exploratory keyboard sustain, the melodica slowly builds as the guitars get wilder with a slow descending ending.

Lament For Loughinisland feels quite dense and troubled, as the long tones sustain with the glockenspiel slowly emerging from the mists as you hear whale sounds in the distance.

La Tengo was influenced by Gabo Szabo, Jimi Hendrix and Yo La Tengo, obviously the less boring end of that band's oeuvre. This builds nicely with the guitar playing against the pulsing bass and gently insistent drumming, that's all about the cymbal work. The guitars gradually start to freak out against the ever-present bass pulse as it becomes ever more mesmeric.

Manannan Mac Lir feels familiar, like he's turned an old pop song into an organ led lament that shimmers, shifts as the glockenspiel breaks through and the guitars flourish.

New Loft Trio refers to Damian's home studio in his loft where most of the album was recorded with his family. This has a childlike nursery rhyme style feel to it as is slowly unfurls, this feels rather charming and semi classical almost like an old music box.

Waltz Interlude is exactly as it says a short interlude piece. We Want The Wesley's takes us to the chapel and has no Wesley Willis influence at all. As the exploratory guitar builds with the buzzing underneath working as a base for everything else to go around.

The album closes with Round And Round that has a choral opening before the shaker provides the percussive element the bass and keyboards build around, on this gently evocative piece, that closes with a lost Undertones snippet of Cyan Explodes from 1981.

Find out more at https://damianoneill.bandcamp.com/album/an-crann https://ffm.to/damianoneill https://www.facebook.com/damian.oneill.5





  author: simonovitch

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