Dorothy Murphy - Circleways

Dorothy Murphy

Circleways

8:00pm, 19th September 2007, Triskel Arts Centre

The new seating layout in the Triskel is up to code and lovely but has a distinct disadvantage for those of us who have been inadvertently given the wrong start time, as we now have to walk right up to the stage to access the seating at all, resulting in small apologetic greetings to the performer as you try and scurry to the back row as quickly as possible. Once in the dark of the back of the hall, however, it is a lovely venue to come to as a member of the audience, and has a fine tradition of getting the good, the extraordinary, the weird and the wonderful to play there. I’m not entirely sure which of these we were listening to last night. (By the bye, does anyone else find it interesting, nay weird, that weird is the only word which breaks the ‘i before e, except after c’ rule? Just me then? Okay.)

Dorothy Murphy played last night to promote her new album, on which she has been working for the last couple of years. She was accompanied on stage by Claire Fitch on cello, Cormac O’Brien on double bass and trumpet, Phil McMullan on drums and Seán Óg on tenor sax and bass clarinet. Seán Óg was also a major collaborator with Ms Murphy in the creation of the album and the pieces on it.

Once settled in the dark and able to take in the scene, the band, an eclectic group, both in membership and its leaning heavily towards the bass-end of the pitch spectrum, is fronted by Ms Murphy, a bare-foot earth-mother, like a cross between Rachel Allen and Eve Ensler, with an occasional accordion. The accordion for me is always reminiscent of sex and sensuality. Don’t laugh. I’m not talking about the crashing sound produced by the larger versions at some traditional gatherings. This was rather the smaller version used for more agile work. It’s like the difference between the bagpipes and the uilleann pipes. If any of you have listened to Piazzola play tango, you’ll know what I mean. (Incidentally, it's not a bad idea to have some Astor Piazolla stashed away, specifically the Angel suite.) But back to la Murphy. She practices sound vocalisation (I believe it’s called), which explores the range of sounds which the voice is capable of producing without resorting to actual lyric. This is not to say that lyrics were abandoned completely. There were some interesting ones, such as Little Death, written by Seán Óg (taking the little death to mean fear, as opposed to the orgasm, which it also means), which opened with the lines “In the silent yesterday place, crackleglazed spiders weave homes, from the silent places little death creeps”. Rather evocative, no?

This kind of music is definitely an acquired taste and is equally definitely not the mainstream. It is dissonant, atonal, rhythmically obtuse and it can be difficult for the audience to find a handle. It can also have moments of sublime beauty (as in the early parts of Ko'an). I am by no means an expert in this type of music but I felt at times that the vocalisations were fluffed, syllable-wise, and that the free improvisation attempted would have been better as a ‘let’s not and say we did’ moment. The five musicians were gamefully ploughing on through this section but there seemed to be no link between any of them and all that resulted was a series of random sounds and rhythms which bore little connection to what went either before or after or, indeed, at the same time.

This avant garde art often needs more than one listen and for that reason it may be better, for a newcomer, on the CD than live. Ms Murphy’s voice certainly has a beautiful quality, mellifluous, and, should she chat in between the pieces as she did on stage, that could be worth the listen alone.