Tír Na Nóg
Album: Tír Na Nóg:Tír Na Nóg/A Tear And A Smile/Strong In The Sun
Label: Esoteric
Tracks: 15+12+11
Website: http://www.tirnanog-progfolk.com

Strange as it may seem, not quite everyone actually got round to discovering the enchanting music of the duo Tír Na Nóg back in the '70s. For some of us, they constituted something of a forgotten and neglected chapter in what might now be termed psych-folk. And yet, from the moment when Dublin folk-club habitués Leo O'Kelly and Sonny Condell formed the duo (early 1970), their music gradually caused a sensation on both the folk and rock scenes of the time, even before signing to Chrysalis and being championed by John Peel. In spite of their healthy reputation as must-see support act for many of the major bands of the time, they did however seem to fall between two stools, regarded as too folky and outré for the rockers and "ISB-lite" by the more adventurous of listeners; nevertheless, their music exhibited simple charms that transcended suspicions of naïvety and misplaced allegations of lack of substance.

Tír Na NÓg's debut album, which surfaced in 1971, was a thing of beauty: limpid, pastoral and often quite fragile beauty, and was characterised by a certain elusiveness, allied to a delicately wilful eclecticism that balanced its sense of musical understatement. Rather typical of the time too was the mix of music that LP contained, from the sensitively-scored longing of Boat Song and Piccadilly to the evocative, legend-rich title track, the lively eastern-inflected love song Looking Up to the cautious weirdness of Mariner Blues, all contrasting with the deliberately quirky porkiness of Aberdeen Angus (cousin to Big Ted?!). The duo's thoughtful approach to creative instrumentation is apparent throughout the album, with the result that a myriad of influences are delightfully underplayed, as on gorgeous standout track Dante and the modal optimism of Our Love Will Not Decay. The splendid Esoteric remastered reissue of this timeless album is rendered even more attractive by the appending of bonus material in the shape of both sides of the rare pre-album single that Leo and Sonny recorded with producer Mike Batt.

Followup album A Tear And A Smile (1972), for all that it partially replaced its predecessor's rural charm with a slightly harder-edged and savvy vibe, proved no letdown; it boosted the duo's clear-sighted sound with some subtle and sympathetic rhythm section work from Larry Steele and Barry De Souza (then working in the same studios with Cat Stevens), and its menu comprised a bunch of songs which, while archetypally offbeat in character and phrasing, shortchanged neither on memorability nor what might best be termed the duo's trademark mystical energy. Highlights included the ethereal Down Day, the rippling When I Came Down and the lilting, swaying Hemisphere, the minstrel-like pleading of Goodbye My Love and the near-painful yearning of So Freely. This latest Esoteric reissue once again scores over the earlier BGO CD counterpart in that it comes complete with both sides of the pre-album single The Lady I Love/Heidi (but - pace completists! - not also the re-recorded version of Looking Up that was included on the original US release of the LP).

Moving on a year to 1973, we encounter Strong In The Sun, the third and final album to be released by the duo (a fourth was planned but never got made). This album marked the transition to a slightly rockier sound, with more conscious production and fuller use of a rhythm section, and although it contained some glorious songs within, it was inevitably to prove a more uneven set, and for me its finest moments came on the gentler acoustic tracks like Teesside, The Wind Was High and the magical In The Morning (an old song of Sonny's revisited, and worth the price of admission on its own). The exotic Love Lost was another treasure, while Whitestone Bridge and Most Magical gave hints of the potential crossover value of the duo's more consciously upholstered sound, whereas the experimental sampling-collage of Cinema feels intrusive, the cover of Nick Drake's Free Ride is a disappointment (especially in its pole position of lead track) and the album's title number still feels like a lost opportunity for creating that elusive hit single, its would-be-anthemic mood somehow needing more push and drive to succeed (a case of almost there but not quite!). The useful bonus track on this latest reissue is the six-minute B-side of the Strong In The Sun single, here released for the first time on CD.

After Strong In The Sun, Leo and Sonny left Chrysalis and returned to Ireland, going their separate ways pursuing solo careers and working in bands (Garvan and Scullion respectively) but still coming together sporadically to "re-form" Tír Na Nóg for the occasional gig, releasing two live albums a decade apart. Since 2010 and amidst increasing enthusiasm from their fanbase, their gig schedule has enjoyed a resurgence; so it would be nice to feel that this timely and well-packaged new reissue of the trilogy of Tír Na Nóg albums might prompt an exhumation from Leo's attic of the original tapes from the first Strong In The Sun sessions, or the discovery of some post-'74 recordings, or even tempt the guys into a studio again!

David Kidman