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On ‘An 424’, Irish nine-piece collective Trá Pháidín make an impressively unified sound. It’s a brilliantly diverse and highly original record incorporating elements of Irish traditional music, earthy psych, ambient, kraut, free jazz, post rock, field recording and just about anything else you care to mention.
For the first couple of minutes of An 424’s opening track, Cáin Chairr, there are echoey and manipulated wordless vocals, then a vigorous motorik beat kicks in, traces of flute insinuate themselves, there are refreshing gusts of saxophone and some cultish ensemble singing and for a while the whole thing sounds like Can and the Super Furry Animals and maybe Albert Ayler meeting in a field of megaliths. Then, the song winds down with a repeated fiddle phrase like the wavelets of an ebbing tide or receding headlights on a country road.
There is a sense of journey here, and, for want of a less wishy-washy phrase, a sense of oneness with the natural world. Unsurprising really, because the album is in part a reaction to the pioneering psychogeographical work of author, artist and cartographer Tim Robinson, who famously wandered the shores of Connemara, creating a hyper-detailed visual and written record of the area as he went. Using Robinson’s working practice as a kind of guide, Trá Pháidín travel South Connemara’s 424 bus route, creating a musical map that incorporates elements of Irish traditional music, earthy psych, ambient, kraut, free jazz, post rock, field recording and just about anything else you care to mention.
For a nine-piece collective with such a wide range of influences, Trá Pháidín make an impressively unified sound. Of course, different styles slither in and out of each piece, but it all serves the same sonic endpoint. Shimmering primordial ambience is the order of the day on Fear Liatroime páirt 1, the first of a set of three interconnected parts dotted across the album. Speculative bass paves the way for flights of saxophone and a blatter of percussion on Maidin Heinz, while M’anam Go B’ea is more delicate, indebted to minimalism and perhaps the baroque, until the driving rhythm and wild vocals steer the song in a more ecstatic direction.
An 424 revolves around two long pieces: the slow-burning Monty Phádraic Jude juxtaposes repetitive rhythmic patterns with exploratory fiddle, incantatory vocals, windblown plumes of flute. Improvised free jazz drum breaks help keep things interesting, and the twelve minutes just fly by. The even longer Yung Fella has more urgency to it, a rolling, bubbling folk-jazz odyssey with a pattering rhythm section and a sense of movement that almost has an Afro-beat quality to it. Rangy guitar and a shuffling beat provide the backdrop for another album highlight, Cé Mo Dhuine Siúl Sa Hi-Vis, with its frequent interruptions of thoughtful brass, while the closing track, Bóthar an Chillín, is a cold shower of psych-country fiddle.
The experimental end of Irish music is having a real moment: acts like Lankum, ØXN, Landless and John Francis Flynn are all experiencing critical acclaim and commercial success. The common denominator in those acts is the production work of John ‘Spud’ Murphy, and his involvement is invariably a mark of quality. His work with Trá Pháidín is another winner: An 424 is a brilliantly diverse and highly original record, introducing elements of topography and sociology into a kind of DIY avant-garde folk music with results that are always entertaining and never stuffy or overly academic.
An 424 is self released (Streaming: 20 June 2024).
Physical out now: https://trawfawdeen.bandcamp.com/album/an-424
