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Saturday, February 20
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Solas
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Ticket Price: $25.00 adv / $25.00 dos
Doors at 7:00 PM, Show at 8:00 PM
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Solas
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Art In a manner befitting their name (a Gaelic word meaning "light"), Solas burst onto a largely dormant Irish music scene and almost instantly became a beacon - an incandescent ensemble that found contemporary relevance in timeless traditions without ever stooping to crossover clichés. Via spectacular musicianship, riveting band empathy, and a bold willingness to extend the boundaries of their sound, Solas cleared a path for traditional Irish music in the new millennium. While their rapid rise to prominence was startling and reinvigorating, equally impressive is Solas' continued artistic growth. Despite - or perhaps because of - continued evolutions in the band's lineup, they have harnessed the explosive energy of their thrilling early era and extended it outward across a series of albums that showcase an increasing sophistication and a still restless creative spirit.
Solas' most recent album, For Love and Laughter (available August 26 on Compass Records), finds the band embracing new elements while simultaneously looking back. "Looking at this album, we wanted to combine some of the previous approaches," explains founding member and multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan. "We went in with more of the raw, immediate mentality of our first three albums, but kept ourselves open to other possibilities and new elements." The most striking of those new elements is the welcoming of new vocalist Máiréad Phelan to the current Solas lineup of Egan (flutes, whistles, banjo, mandolin, guitar, percussion), Winifred Horan (fiddle), Mick McAuley (accordion, concertina, vocals), and Eamon McElholm (guitar, vocals). Egan is quick to cite the rejuvenating effects of Phelan's addition, remarking "Sonically, a new singer -especially one of Máiréad's abilities - opens up so many different options in terms of both what she can sing and what we can build around her voice."
The ability to adapt to new lineups while continuing to grow artistically is one of Solas' many strengths. First formed in New York City in 1994, the original lineup of Egan, Horan, John Doyle (guitar, vocals), Karan Casey (vocals), and John Williams (accordion, concertina) delivered two quintessential albums (1996's Solas and 1997's Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers) before Williams departed and was replaced by the multi-faceted McAuley. Those first few years saw the band emerge as a critical and commercial favorite, with the The Wall Street Journal declaring "they already seem poised to join the elite of Irish traditional bands active today, including the Chieftains and Altan." Casey departed for a solo career prior to the band's 2000 release The Hour Before Dawn, which introduced vocalist Deidre Scanlon. 2002's The Edge of Silence welcomed guitarist Donal Clancy, who departed in time for McElholm to take the guitar chair for 2003's Another Day. This lineup reconvened for 2005's gripping Waiting for an Echo.
The continuity of Solas was well illustrated by the remarkable 2006 release Reunion: A Decade of Solas, a live CD/DVD that documented a concert in Philadelphia featuring all past and present members - sometimes in their original configuration, but more often reassembled in intriguing new ways that ingenuously and refreshingly defied nostalgia. "The reunion project took up a fair chunk of time and energy," Egan reflects. "That was probably about a year from conception to actually getting it done. But after a quick bit of reset, we set out playing again."
The band has maintained a hectic schedule, and has been especially active in Europe. Scanlon left to pursue other opportunities in 2007, and for some time the band carried on without a full-time singer, allowing McAuley and McElholm - both gifted, soulful vocalists in their own right - to share the vocal spotlight. The band continued recording, and in Egan's estimation "had the better part of an album finished by the time Máiréad joined us in early summer of this year. As soon as she said ‘Yes,' we were in the studio finishing it."
Recorded in Ireland, Louisiana, and Philadelphia (the band's unofficial home-base and where all but one of their albums were recorded), For Love and Laughter is a dynamic, vibrant collection of songs and instrumental features that, as the band intended, matches the hard-driving glory of the first few Solas albums with the richer textures of their subsequent projects. Cellist Natalie Haas, whom Solas met while they were performing as the house orchestra of the popular Boston holiday program "A Christmas Celtic Sojourn", enlivens three tracks, while two songs feature a full-bore collaboration with Canadian roots alchemist The Duhks, recorded in the Louisiana studio of the highly regarded producer and multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell. "We'd run into one another in festivals, and would sit with one another in late at night," Egan explains. "It would be great fun, and at one of the festivals we asked if they were up to trying something for the new album, and they agreed. The cool thing was that we were able to record those tracks live in the studio - both bands together and just played it." The resulting songs - an instrumental set called "Vital Mental Medicine" and the vocal feature "Merry Go Round" - are rousing performances on an album that finds Solas embracing straight-ahead grooves more than ever before. "There aren't full-on drum kits on this album," quips Egan. "But we do use a MacGyver-esque approach to the percussion sections, which is what we did early on. We definitely decided to not be afraid of the backbeat on a few tracks!" "Seven Curses," which features a luminously restrained performance from Phelan, packs a similar percussive wallop and also showcases McAuley's and McElhom's spot-on harmony vocals. Instrumental sets like "John Riordan's Reels" and "Eoin Bear's Reel" feature the brilliant intertwining of Horan's dazzlingly agile fiddle, McAuley's squeezebox, and whichever instrument Egan chooses to employ at a given moment, backed by McElholm's surging rhythm guitar.
Longtime Solas associates Chico Huff (bass) and John Anthony (who, in addition to recording and mixing much of the album, contributes percussion) are also a key part of the band's rhythmic force.As a whole, For Love and Laughter is an impressive summary of what continues to make Solas an engaging and powerful presence on the Irish music scene. "I believe," Egan says, "that we were successful in melding together all of the various approaches we've used over the years in a way that comes across as being organic. This album has that raw feel of the first few, but also has some of those things that you don't necessarily pick up on the first listen…things that are working in the background that you only discover on repeated listens." "We're going into our thirteenth year now," Egan concludes. "After continuing on this long, as a musician, you want to be surprised; you want to be pushed. Those qualities are important. Whether it's from a new member or by collaborating with people like The Duhks or Natalie Haas, it's good to have a different perspective...it makes you feel young again."
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