I’m really enjoying Linda Buckley’s new album, From Ocean’s Floor, released on NMC last week. Until now I’ve always associated Buckley’s music (I interviewed her a decade ago as part of my ’10 for ’10’ series) with a kind of lush, folky minimalism – almost an Irish Górecki, perhaps. On From Ocean’s Floor that side of her work is very much apparent. But it is done here with a subtlety of imagination that goes beyond that simple description. You may think you’ve heard before the strings and plaintive voice combination of the eponymous opening piece, Ó Íochtar Mara, but as Buckley’s melodies stretch out in unexpected directions, and as the voice of traditional sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird glides across the surface, the music is energised into something entirely new. As the work proceeds an electronic part comes to the fore, adding a hauntological tone to proceedings as the strings recede and are replaced by echoes, long loops, and digitally stretched vocals.
Fridur, for piano and electronics, takes its inspiration from the uneasy, fragile atmosphere of Icelandic landscapes (its title is Icelandic for ‘peace’, a complicated concept in relation to Iceland’s restless geology). This dark edge comes to the fore in Discordia, in which poppy synth arpeggios break down completely into a frightening howl of noise that could easily be added to the Stranger Things soundtrack. There is a chilling absence at the heart of these works that subverts any forceful declamations they may try to make. (I was not surprised to learn that Buckley wrote Discordia in response to her experience of moving to the USA, on a Fulbright scholarship, in autumn 2016.) What is particularly striking about Buckley’s work is the way in which the ear is seduced into these dark territories: her materials (plangent melodies, luxuriant washes of sound) at first seem straightforward; her motifs (oceans, floating, peace) almost twee and certainly not confrontational. Yet the intensity of her work is irresistible, and turns all these notions away from the expected: oceans are deep and dark, to float is to be unmoored, peace has a cost. It’s a subversion that many musicians attempt, but few manage this well.
With three more works on the disc – the homesick, Bartók-inspired Haza for string quartet electronics; Kyrie, in which Buckley performs on both voice and electronics; and Exploding Stars for violinist Darragh Morgan – this is a generous portrait that is full of surprises and unsettling questions.
The Rambler 