MARY JANE LAMOND

Storas

Turtlemusik 06363

Mary Jane Lamond has a voice that would lend itself to the pop world.  Instead she wraps traditional Gaelic songs in contemporary treatments, a veritable postmodern pastiche.  Lamond’s innovative updates of waulking songs are evocative of Talitha MacKenzie projects, but she throws a few curves entirely of her own.  For instance the often- preformed love song “O Nighean Donn nan Gobhar” reemerges as a dreamy jazz ballad and is followed by another love song, “Mo Nighean Donn as Boidhche” whose edgy fiddle and driving percussion courtesy of Wendy MacIssac and Geoff Arsenault, respectively would be at home in a dance club.  Arsenault is a master of cross rhythms which infuse numerous tracks with transformative verve.  “Gru e mo run an Domhnallach,” for example, is far from a traditional Gaelic call-and-response song; Arsenault’s precussion and Chris Corrigan’s funky guitar work breathe new life into what would otherwise be a folkloric museum piece.  Arsenault also compensates for Lamond’s only shortcoming; her light voice doesn’t have a lot of bottom, but his thumping beats make us forget that. 

Those who prefer their Gaelic song straight up will find a smattering of old style laments and port a beul selections, but Lamond reminds us that many of the songs on her album are still sung on Cape Breton and, as living music, can and should be updated.  Bully for her, I say.

R Weir