Varo: “We needed to do something and feel good about it… And have a purpose”

Sitting in the courtyard of Mulligan’s pub in Dublin’s trendy Stoneybatter neighbourhood, Consuelo Nerea Breschi and Lucie Azconaga bask in the unusual Irish sunshine. But the happiness of the day extends beyond that: these musicians, who comprise VARO, are having an album launch for a collaborative project, The World That I Knew, which began five years ago, during the pandemic. “Everybody experienced lockdown in a different way,” Lucie remarks, “but on my side, it was awful and lonely and dark and just despair. So, we needed to do something to have the feeling, the impression, that we were still connecting with people… We needed to do something and feel good about it… And have a purpose.”

Having both immersed themselves in Dublin’s music scene for the best part of the 2010s, culminating in their self-titled 2020 debut album, VARO had many talented friends to connect with and draw on for this project. Once they had made a list of themes to cover – many linked to the lockdown – and researched songs from the traditional archive, the duo sent out invitations and song suggestions to fellow musicians. “We asked a lot of people,” says Consuelo, “we would have loved to ask even more, but we couldn’t, we had to stop at some point.” Lucie adds: “In fairness, some of the people we asked couldn’t do it at the time. But the 11 that said yes and are on the album, I was just…” She pauses, “It was a pleasure, it was beyond.” Those collaborators, who recorded with VARO in the summer of 2021, include Ruth Clinton (Landless), Ian Lynch (Lankum), Niamh Bury, Junior Brother, John Francis Flynn and a host of others who have been dominating the Irish scene of late. The arrangements feature VARO’s resonating harmonies and subtle fiddle-playing, melded and adapted to the timbres, instruments and songs of their guests. Niamh Bury’s soft but firm ‘Work Life Out to Keep Life In’ is borne along by their three voices (and enhanced by joyous trombone from Alex Borwick). Ian Lynch’s forthright ‘Sweet Liberty’ starts with only Lynch and a drone. VARO dive in after a few lines, their voices a surprise, building to a rallying cry of freedom. The album is produced by John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum, ØXN) and, as usual, while capturing big sounds, he manages to incorporate and give space to the small, too – fiddles swim inside drones and gentle hums echo against walls of sound (hear ‘Alone (with Slow Moving Clouds)’).

The World That I Knew is the culmination of hard work and passion for the tradition, not just focused on this one project. While Consuelo grew up in Italy listening to Irish music, she only began playing as an adult: “My father is a pianist and composer, and he’s always had a foot in Ireland and a foot in Italy because he was working with lots of people over here and bringing them back to Italy. So, I’ve always listened to Irish music since I was born, but I started very late to play… I was playing bodhrán [from] 16 but then I only started the fiddle when I was 20.” After many trips back and forth, Consuelo moved to Dublin in 2015 to pursue this music in situ. Lucie, on the other hand, grew up in the French countryside with an altogether different musical background: “I started by learning classical piano… And then I went to study in Bordeaux. I learned how to sing jazz there. But in the last band that I had, we recruited a fiddle player who was in love with Irish music. Every time we were doing the soundcheck, he would always play these mad Irish tunes… He introduced me to it. I got very drawn to the culture. I came here for a month of a holiday and decided I want to learn this music, I want to learn the fiddle, so I’m going to come here for a year.” She smiles, “14 years later, I am still here.” Once in Dublin, Lucie camped out in Smithfield’s famous music pub, the Cobblestone, every day, studying the techniques of fiddlers she saw there. It was there that she and Consuelo met, at a session. They clicked, it seems, immediately. Laughing as they remember it, Lucie declares, “That was the beginning, I suppose, of our friendship and our music life together.”

Nine years later, at Mulligan’s after the sun has set, VARO sit inside with their fiddles, surrounded by friends on bodhrán, tin whistles, guitar and more, for another session. Lucie is next to Consuelo, both of them grinning and, sometimes, giggling almost too much to play.