Ye Vagabonds’ origin story has more than a hint of rags-to-riches about it, except the riches are of the artistic rather than the monetary kind. The Mac Gloinn brothers began performing together just as what would come to be called – somewhat euphemistically – the post-2008 Irish economic downturn began to take a stranglehold on Ireland’s banks and businesses. The arts sector, and music in particular, took a battering, as it so often does when national purse-strings are tightened. Austerity has the habit of shifting creative paradigms: scenes are pushed underground as funding dries up; music and art become more political, more belligerently anti-establishment. The old cycles persist: necessity begets invention, jewels are dredged up from the mud.
Now zoom in on the medium-sized town of Carlow. 2008. A pair of brothers are performing tunes in the street. Perhaps they earn some small change – likely a fraction of what their music deserves, but enough to help them galvanise a community, and enough to host some of the most electrifying music nights their town has ever witnessed. Those muddy jewels don’t come fully-formed, they have to be worked at, and dozens of artists will fall by the wayside having never produced the finished article. But Ye Vagabonds put in the hard yards. Their talent doesn’t go unnoticed. A move to Dublin, with its emergent experimental folk scene, allows them to further develop their punchy, earthy take on traditional music, full of wild harmonies and haunted by the ghosts of Ireland’s rural communities.
Fast forward to 2023, and Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn are collaborating with American indie-rock supergroup Boygenius on a new version of The Parting Glass for a charity single in tribute to Sinéad O’Connor. They have an EP and three critically acclaimed albums under their belt. There’s the sense that the band are at a kind of crossroads. They’ve reached the stage where a new album is an eagerly-awaited thing, and there is always the possibility that it could bring with it some kind of sea change, some new direction, or perhaps a retreat to their roots.
That fourth album – All Tied Together – has finally arrived, and strangely, it is both a progression and a consolidation. It is both bigger and somehow closer than its predecessors. The sense of progression stems from two factors: the songs, for the first time, are all their own, and the music is performed by a large and varied array of collaborators. But in striking contrast to the comparatively big sound, the album’s themes are more personal than ever. In focusing on their own songwriting rather than traditional material, the Mac Gloinns created a collection of songs with real emotional heft. All Tied Together is an album about home and companionship. Two of its songs – Danny and I’ll Keep Singing – are about departed friends. Danny tells the story of a local lad failed by society, but rather than being maudlin or overly sentimental, there is a celebratory feel to it. The strings, when they hit, strike the perfect balance between soaring and sad. I’ll Keep Singing pays tribute to a former mentor. As well as the customary plucks and strums, there are instruments less often seen in the folk tradition: a minimal piano, a shimmer of synth, the constant itch of feedback.
Similarly, Mayfly is a character study of a friend who disappeared from the eyes of society. A stormy synth interrupts the song two-thirds of the way through, making the clarity of the final verse even more piercing. It’s those kind of moments that mark the album out as something of a departure: they are employed subtly, never overbearingly, and are a sign of the brothers’ continued progress as songwriters and as artists who can imagine and create a sonic landscape. Some credit must also go to Phil Weinrobe. The producer has worked with indie darlings Big Thief, and he helps bring a kind of restrained energy to these songs, as well as a sense of space. The Eno-inspired love song Gravity is defined by its expanses: a layered collage of synths and bowed bass. It is minimal, almost ambient, until the vocals take hold, and we are wrapped up in their slow, sweet, slightly discomforting progress. Weinrobe travelled from Brooklyn with multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, who contributes to a collaborative effort that includes ten musicians.
Beneath the embellishments, Ye Vagabonds do the simple things very well. The synth floats near the surfaces of opener Sitric Road, but the song’s bones are clearly visible: a limber acoustic guitar and a vocal performance full of nostalgia (and a turn of phrase that would make Christy Moore proud). Along with the following song, The Flood – a jumpy, fiddle-driven romp – it tells a kind of creation myth, a look back at times spent in Dublin squats during the band’s formative years. This opening one-two is both deeply nostalgic and rich with autobiographical detail. So too are the breezy Cuckoo Storm, the tale of a friend from squat days, and the tender Where the Heart Lies. It seems to be a gift among certain Irish songwriters to be able to write about the nostalgia of personal experience in a way that is often highly moving without ever succumbing to the pitfalls of cliche or mawkishness. It’s a gift the Mac Gloinns have in abundance.
Four Walls tackles a similar subject to Where the Heart Lies: the move from an itinerant lifestyle towards domesticity. Here, Brían writes of a string of evictions he and his partner endured, but he does so without a hint of bitterness, only hope for the future. Young Again is a plainspoken love song written by Diarmuid for his wife, all about the pleasures of living together in the moment – again, it’s moving without being mushy. On the springy, lightfooted Long Grass, he takes inspiration from the visionary Sufi mystic, Rumi. The song extolls the virtue of acceptance; its sentiment is simple but wise, and never comes across as overly didactic. And closing track We Always Forget About the Rain – with its beautiful harmonies, Kate Ellis’ melancholy cello, the delicate fingerpicking – brings together many of the album’s most enthralling elements. It rounds things off on a lyrically ambiguous, open-ended note.
Given how far Ye Vagabonds have come since the early days, it wouldn’t be too controversial to see All Tied Together as the work of a band looking back on their past with fondness and taking stock of their current situation. But if the content of these songs tells you one thing, it’s that the Mac Gloinn brothers are still living life on the move, putting everything into their music. The concepts of past and future are insignificant: it’s experience that counts, and Ye Vagabonds have learnt to turn their experiences into vital, absorbing art.
Source: klofmag.com