From Ocean’s Floor

Linda Buckley is one of the most eclectic, least categorisable composers Ireland has produced in recent years. As likely to reference post-punk, Javanese gamelan and ambient electronica as the classical idioms she predominantly works within, her music also suggests a deep connection with the inherited folk tradition to which she turns her attention on the contrarily sparse and concentrated From Ocean’s Floor for contemporary classical label NMC’s Debut Discs series.

The four-part title-track (‘Ó Íochtar Mara’) goes back to basics, to Ireland’s ancient sean nós singing style. Setting its elaborately ornamented vocals evocatively realised here by Iarla Ó Lionáird – against the wavering string voices of the Crash Ensemble and a wash of unsettling electronic drones. The track is a lowering, slow-paced, darkly intense retelling of the ancient Irish legend of the doomed lovers Gráinne and Diarmuid.

Buckley’s delicately deliberate electronics are heard throughout, accompanying Isabelle O’Connell’s pointillistic piano (the glacial, simultaneously shivering and still ‘Fridur’), the shimmering canna sonora (aluminium harp) of Joby Burgess (‘Discordia’) and suspended ecstasy of Darragh Morgan’s tremulous violin (‘Exploding Stars’). ‘Kyrie’ features Buckley as wordless vocalist in an ambient-drenched electronic soundscape of dislocating beauty. Intelligent, atmospheric and strangely beautiful.