The Irish are well-known for having what is known as “a sense of place,” that atavistic connection that people have with the locality they were born in or grew up in.
However, it can also refer to special places that have a resonance with an individual for their own particular reasons - the scene of a romantic tryst, a graveyard, a waterfall, a shoreline.
Of course, it’s the same the world over, be it amongst the Inuit inhabiting the Arctic or the indigenous peoples of the Amazon or Mongolian nomads in the Gobi desert, there is an innate, instinctive interrelationship between humans and their environments which can be spiritual, cultural and/or emotional.
These are what pours forth from the new album by Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Myles O’Reilly, The Beautiful Road.
Rónán is, of course, a songwriter, composer, musician, poet and founding member and lead vocalist in Kíla while Myles is a musician, composer and also a prolific video and filmmaker.
Together, they are creating sounds and songs which dig deep into the particular and the universal.
Following the success of the duo’s debut album Tá Go Maith, which was warmly received after its release in 2021, Rónán and Myles have been playing numerous shows at home and abroad, showcasing their unique sound to an ever-growing fanbase.
Read more:
Ralph McTell's English heart and Irish soul
Looking forward to the return of Temple Bar Tradfest and Armagh's William Kennedy Piping Festival
Having written and developed new songs while touring, the duo decamped to a log cabin in Roscommon and a farmhouse in remote west Cork to work on the The Beautiful Road.
Recording one song every day, surrounded by countryside and inspired by nature, the pair set out to create a soothing listening experience by focusing on higher frequencies, inspired by the calming effects of bird song, wind, rain, and sea.
They also sought to counter the increased levels of intrusive ambient "white noise" caused by traffic, machinery and other unpredictable sounds arising from the world’s post-pandemic return to frenzied norms, noises that so often overwhelm our ears and inner filters.
The result is a collection of songs in Irish and English and instrumentals which experiments with a variety of comforting sonic elements – including bells, breaths, brush-stroked rhythms, half-time beats, and ambient melodies – to create a sonic massage that relaxes the ears and settles the soul.
To accompany different moods and settings, Rónán and Myles considered not only the tune, but also the listener's potential physical posture.
From head-nodding paces and cheek-to-cheek melodies for seated listeners, to enough swing to keep dancers on the floor and enough room to drift off for those who prefer to unwind by walking or lying down, this album offers a range of sonic experiences for everyone, a musical refuge from the stresses of everyday life.
The two artists are obviously on the same wavelength and Rónán describes making the album as “a process of encouraging, uncovering and bringing the best out in each other,” an analogy Myles agrees with.
“With each song, we're watching our feet, traversing a similar tapestry of swollen bog, stone walls, hedgerows, and sheep-shorn grass. A new horizon always revealing itself up ahead.
“Every beautiful pause promises another level to ascend. So this new album is such a natural continuation of Tá Go Maith because we're both still making our way, at our own pace, up that same mountain.
“Rónán carries burning embers of chants, rhythms, and stories; I'm carrying a bale of kindling and a lighter, and on up the slope, we climb, with a goal to bring as many people up the hill with us... and light a fire,” he says.
The Beautiful Road is a soulful blend of folk, traditional and ambient crossover, released just this past week on Claddagh Records.
This week the lads also shared a new video for a track entitled Calling All Angels, filmed and edited by Myles and featuring Rónán and Wexford hurler, Diarmuid Lyng.
It’s an apt combination as Lyng is the founder of Wild Irish, an organisation based in Corca Dhuibhne/the Dingle Peninsula, which helps people “with mental health and societal stress by spending time in nature with Ireland's indigenous language".
Speaking about the video, Diarmuid says he has long admired the work of Myles and Rónán, both individually and collectively.
“Their first album was my go-to soundtrack for the lockdown,” he says.
“For the video, we discussed through movement the ways in which music and hurling are similar, what separates us, and what brings us back together.
“Hurling is a fundamentally creative process, but as we continue down the path laid out by statisticians and sports psychologists, it's hard not to think that some outlet for our young men, in particular, is being lost—individual creativity suffering function and outcome.
At the same time, it's a celebration of what the game is: a tonic, a community, our way of making sense of the fine line between battle and play—our game, played our way.”
For the musician/composer/producer that is Myles O’Reilly, upon hearing Calling All Angels for the first time, he says he immediately recognised it was a total classic.
“It took me a while to fully grasp the depth of the lyrics which hold a very personal significance for Rónán,” he explains.
“So, as we embarked on creating the video, our aim was to avoid a literal representation of Rónán’s deeper meaning.
“As he and Diarmuid began to play with their hurls on the Dublin seafront, I realised it was my responsibility, much like Rónán's approach to his lyrics, to view the scene through a poetic lens.
“I still can't describe or explain what exactly they were doing, other than sharing a deeply personal and playful moment in their own private and symbolic way.”
Another video single from the album is King of the Kingdom/Rí an Ríochta, the recording of which was very personal to Rónán.
“I've been collecting rings, earrings, and keyrings that I've found in cities around the world, sewing them into leg shakers and belts for a number of years.
“While recording this album with Myles during four stormy days in west Cork, we could hear the roar of the Atlantic Ocean every time we stepped outside. This inspired me to wear them all at once, and dance to the track. I used my full body to play the rhythm of a heartbeat, the first beat we hear in the womb, mixed with glorious high-frequency patterns that the wind, the sea and waves can create,” he beautifully explains.
The Beautiful Road by Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Myles O’Reilly is out now, via Claddagh Records.
