If you are inspired to make a solo album, you could spend months in an expensive studio, hire a philharmonic orchestra, recruit a top producer and, if you get stuck, consult Eno's Oblique Strategies.
Alternatively, you could take a ukulele out to a shed with a small batch of songs and record directly onto tape.
Peter Delaney of County Limerick wisely decided on the latter course for this mini-album; a reissue of a record originally released as a limited edition cdr in 2008. It was made during a break from playing with the more conventional three-piece Indie band Red Eskimo.
The seven songs are like twisted sea shanties with more than a hint of darkness lurking beneath the waves.
The centrepiece is O Great Father Ocean which is either a salty love song or the sad tale of a drowning man with a "heart pumping seaweed and brine sat in my lungs".
The enigmatic content is not unique to this tune; curious lines like "only lovers kill because only lovers feel" (Only) and "babies don't grow by themselves" (Wooden Flower) are to be uncovered elsewhere.
Delaney claims influences ranging from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to Mississippi John Hurt but says he was first inspired to take up the ukulele by listening to old Hawaiian recordings from the 1920s with titles like Moana Chimes and Maui Chimes.
I think it is fair to say, however, that the opening track ,Pariah Chimes, does little to conjure up images of an island paradise. Instead, it presents an altogether bleaker portrait of a "hound of the city" who is "broke down, drunk and emptied out".
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Delivered in a fragile voice, which struggles with falsetto notes, the singer expresses feelings of someone lost and abandoned without wallowing in self pity. "It's true we all have to cross that dark black river all alone" he sings resignedly on If You Become Impossible while on The Light I Saw he bemoans the fact that "I fall asleep late and feel god's not there / I wake up down and feel god's not here".
You could seek consolation in the rooms of The Healing House, but since "every wall soaks up another year like a sponge" this offers only cold comfort.
The knowing quirkiness reminds me most of France's Herman Düne, a band much loved by John Peel.
I'm sure that, were he still around today, Peelie would have been similarly taken by Delaney because, although it is only twenty two minutes long, this is a record of infinite charm.
Peter Delaney on Myspace
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