Reviews
Artist:Antoni O'Breskey Album: Blessed Sadness
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.nomadicpiano.com
I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't come across the work of Antoni O'Breskey before taking a listen to this, but a quick check online reveals that he is a veteran of more than 25 previous releases. It was tempting to take a dip into his previous work before tackling this, but decided to listen in isolation.
The title track is based around a ukulele piece with layered trumpet and piano, a combination I don't recall hearing before, but it works beautifully, and this is far from the only surprise on the album.
Latching onto the pieces I was familiar with, it soon became clear that O'Breskey is able to find the beauty in folk music and elevate it out of the rustic and into the refined. The traditional Irish song, 'Eighteen Years Old', begins with a plaintive trumpet accompanied by piano that feels deceptively simple at first, before the vocal begins. While I'm more familiar with Cara Dillon's version of the song, which comes over as light and positive, emphasizing the nature of the young girl in question, O'Breskey takes a more sombre note as if the more cautionary tone of the mother deserves prominence.
Although it's a pretty depressing song, O'Breskey manages to bring an extra level of sorrow to 'Barbara Allan'. Every recording of this song I can think of is accompanied by a guitar or something similar, but that doesn't quite capture the same level of sadness achieved here by a piano. This version is incredibly moving and typifies what much of this album is about, but it's not all depressing.
This is an album that brings together so many different aspects, it allows folk, jazz and minimalist music to work together, while also showing influences from different parts of the world, but at no point do they feel that they don't belong together. Without doubt one of the most mesmerising of these is 'Dancing on the Green', a tune O'Breskey first recorded 40 years ago, but here he has taken that original recording and added to it, putting together Appalachian dulcimer, didgeridoo, bodhran and banjo. It's not a combination I would ever have thought of, but it works wonderfully.
Well worth a listen, and I'll be dipping into O'Breskey's back catalogue before too long.
Steve Lockley
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Eighteen Years Old
Fatea Showcase Sessions
The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.