By Don Allred
Solas, which means “light” in Gaelic, is also the title of an album recorded in 1996, a special project of virtuoso Irish and Irish-American musicians. 1996 was the beginning of a surge in the popularity of Irish music, and Solas, the one-time-only album, turned out to be the debut of Solas, the vanguard band. However, there were so many possibilities in the unexpected folk boom, that several members did eventually move on, as originally planned. By 2005, multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan and fiddler Winifred Horan were the only constants, but they’ve had plenty of company, on seven Solas albums and many tours. Life was sweet, so they had to push their luck.
Plans for a tenth-anniversary concert with the current lineup (in which Egan and Horan are teamed with lead vocalist Dierdre Scanlan, guitarist Eamon McElhorn, and button accordionist Mick McAuley), came to include performers from all variations of Solas. Since this resulted in the convergence of 14 (versatile) musicians, who had never been all been onstage at the same time, and the show was being taped and filmed, why not experiment with some material from around the time of that very first album, much of which they hadn’t played in the past decade?
The results of that three-hour Philadelphia concert were released this spring as Reunion, A Decade of Solas, on Compass Records. Included are a 78-minute CD and a 105-minute DVD (with more music, band interviews, and other DVD-only goodies). Both discs feature many different combinations of musicians, instruments, and stylistic elements, in everything from epic, percussive medleys (often with recurring/overlapping themes, like a medieval DJ mix), to the CD’s final track, “Frankie’s Lament,” on fiddle, flute, and piano. It’s basically just a short row of bow strokes, carefully stated, but full of feeling.
Without this combination of self-discipline and passion, sweet Solas might well sound too wholesome, despite singing about highway robbery, the prospect of being turned back into witches, and other “heart’s delights.” But co-founding singer Karan Casey replaces the eerie calm of Woody Guthrie’s migrant song “Pastures of Plenty” with an apprehensive energy, a possible reminder of how much the listener’s own degree of “plenty” depends on cheap labor. Also, the traditional “Silver Dagger,” and the traditional-sounding “Black Annis”---remarkably written by young Antje Duvekot—are sexual power stuggles. In which the orbiting voices of Dierdre Scanlan and Winifred Horan, along with visitor Duvekot, manage to achieve the same effect as Irish-American Woody G.: the sense that everything has already happened, and is ready for another round. https://irisharchaeology.org/hut-sites/
Solas will be performing on Friday, 8/4, as part of the Dublin Irish Festival, held from Friday-Sunday.at Coffman Park in Dublin. Tickets are $8 per day and weekend passes are $22. More info: http://www.dublinirishfestival.org
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