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Growing up in a bilingual and bicultural environment has clearly influenced Kevin Fowley. Having a French mother who would sing lullabies to him in French is hard to square with an Irish father playing fiddle tunes from Donegal. Being raised in both countries, he became aware of how these differing cultures and languages changed his personality: “… I usually think in English, but if I intentionally start thinking in French, a markedly different side of my personality comes through, encouraging different thought patterns”. This remarkable combination of influences comes to the fore on the recording À Feu Doux, featuring four songs (French lullabies and traditional folk songs) that his mother used to sing to him as a child.
Alongside these cultural influences, his decision to record in the attic of his Dublin home also brought a unique atmosphere to these recordings. “Having the time and the space to record at home helped capture the atmosphere I was looking for. I wanted to keep in the room noise, the chair and floorboard creaks. It gives a sense of time and place.” The ambience helped him deliver recordings alive and unvarnished, sounding less like songs designed to help one fall asleep, rather you can imagine parents “would sing them to frighten their children into obedience,” he admits.
Musically these tracks don’t fit the traditional format associated with lullabies and folk music. In some ways, they sound exactly like what they are: a musician in his attic mixing guitar with a variety of found sounds, seemingly creating something more for his own amusement than preparing something for eventual release. Along with the gentle sounds of guitar, echoes change the framing as do clicks and other sonics sounding more experimental in nature. Waves of sound delineate these tracks subtly shifting the focus. None retain the melodies of old lullabies.
Opening with Ne Pleure Pas, Jeanette, about a woman who so wants to marry an imprisoned man that she would rather be hanged with him than live without him, one can understand how horrifying that thought could be. Set to the kind of gently smokey music one might hear in a folk or jazz club it dawns on listeners that this is a set of uniquely compelling music. Despite songs with terribly dark themes, hanged lovers, and being rebuffed because of being considered sexually impure, Aux Marches Du Palais ends the collection with a woman and a cobbler who make plans to sleep in a square bed so big a river runs through the middle of it, all the king’s horse drink from the river and the bed has flowers at every corner. There these two lovers will spend their nights until the end of the world.
Four simple songs have rarely generated such a transformative collection the way À Feu Doux does. Rather than a series of children’s lullabies, Kevin Fowley has developed a set of sounds for a much more adult audience. Understanding the power of music, these sounds are perhaps the most evocative and revolutionary music you will hear all year. These are lullabies for the child residing inside each adult.
À Feu Doux via Basin Rock (Vinyl) | Bandcamp (26 July 2024)
