#Brigid Mae Power

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3 x One More Cup Of Coffee

[olaskoolkitchen]

Ola's Kool Kitchen podcast 501 sonic sunshine in a bottle with Brigid Mae Power, DIIV, We Are Wood, A Place To Bury Strangers & Automatic.

[rastronomicals]

9:07 AM EDT March 21, 2024:

Brigid Mae Power - "Wedding Of A Friend" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

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[dustedmagazine]

Brigid Mae Power — Dream from the Deep Well (Fire)

Photo by Eva Carolan

Dream from the Deep Well by Brigid Mae Power

Brigid Mae Power sings like a phosphorescent flame, her tones flickering, swelling and subsiding, slipping effortlessly over shifting notes and stretching single syllables over fluttering melodic phrases. Her voice, pure and high with a lemon-y sharp tang, is a mesmerizing thing, all on its own, and more than a conduit for the traditional and original songs she delivers here.

Consider, for instance, her opening salvo, a ghostly tracery of the Clancy Brothers’ classic, “I Know Who Is Sick.” But while the Irish traditionalists take this melody at a skiffle-y trot, Power elongates it and elaborates on its slippery curves, seeking out the hurt and uncertainty in every syllable. Her interstitial “ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah” crooning could hardly be different from the original’s trad Irish “touralourah,” substituting water pure melancholy for giddy cliché.

Another cover makes more sense on the surface, since Tim Buckley, like Power, takes the tune as a suggestion rather than an order, embellishing folk styles with jazzy slides and bent notes. But even so, Mae’s take on “I Must Have Been Blind” is a revelation, her voice as transparent as glass but full of freedom, as it crests a pensive arrangement of piano and cello.

The originals are good, too, especially pellucid “Counting Down,” which rattles and rambles in loose country folk style, drums pounding, piano chiming and that extraordinary voice narrating ordinary events—taking her son to swimming lessons, coming home, playing music. “The Waterford Song” tilts its jangling guitar sideways with eerie trills of organ, and again, Power’s unearthly voice keening and swelling. The song is about Power’s ancestral connections to Ireland, and it blends the real and the spiritual in a mist-shrouded mystery.

Power ends her album with another song linked to her homeland, the rebel ballad “Down by the Glenside” written during the uprising and studded with archaic language. The cut has an archival quality—and how could it not—with the sound fading in and out like a cracked 78 and Power singing simply, sadly and with a pronounced Irish lilt. Yet even here, she sounds freer and more self-determined than the material itself. Her voice wanders delicately where it will, putting the spirit in an old song so that it flutters to life.

Jennifer Kelly

[maquina-semiotica]

Brigid Mae Power, "Dream From The Deep Well"

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Brigid Mae Power - Dream From The Deep Well

[gatheredinamber]

Recorded at this event at Dublin’s Museum of Literature Ireland, on 5 May this year.

[covers-on-spotify]

"Didn't It Rain"

Original by Songs: Ohia

Covered by Brigid Mae Power

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Brigid Mae Power - Wearing Red That Eve

[rastronomicals]

7:43 PM EDT October 18, 2020:

Brigid Mae Power - "Wedding Of A Friend" From the compilation Mojo: 2020 Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though it's title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[maquina-semiotica]

Brigid Mae Power, "Dream From The Deep Well" #NowPlaying

[gatheredinamber]

Local Tales and Legends will explore the contemporary resonance of folk myth from both countries, and the enduring artistic inspiration of local legend. Irish language author Máire Zepf will join Deirdre Sullivan and Donald S. Murray for a discussion on language and the power of mythology to capture the imagination of readers of all ages. The event will also feature performances from Brigid Mae Power and Alasdair Roberts.