Concert: A Ritual Sea (Workman's Club)

A Ritual Sea are Dublin's very own Hiberno-French gothgaze sensations and this February concert saw them launching their debut album. When I arrived a support act was already onstage, a woman who played a mysterious stringed instrument (later revealed to be a balalaika) while she sang and fiddled with electronics. I think at least one song was about her cat. There was a definitely appealing quality to her sound but it was a real struggle to find out who she was, with people I asked not knowing or not remembering the name she was trading under, or else they did know and said it to me but the ambient noise meant I was unable to pick it up. Eventually research revealed that she records and plays as Cormorant Tree Oh and is on Bandcamp ( https://cormorant-tree-oh.bandcamp.com ). I recommend checking her out.

A Ritual Sea themselves I have seen a few times supporting other people and once playing as headliners in a small venue with problematic sound. This was my first time seeing them in all their glory and they have really flowered into an impressive live band. On record they tend towards the ethereal end of shoegaze but live they are a good bit more muscular, with a lot of this down to the powerful rhythm section. However the shimmering guitar action keeps the shoegaze faith, with the delightful interlocking tones of guitarists Florian Chombart and Nina Ruminska counterpointing the vocals of Chombart and Donna McCabe. Ruminska's playing in particular is stunning; she seems to be one of those people who are ridiculously mutli-talented, as investigation reveals her to be a gifted creator of visual art.

So this was a great concert and the crowd responded in kind. However, there was a note of sadness to proceedings. The band had already said that this would be their only concert this year, but now from the stage McCabe intimated that it could be their last concert ever, without going into the reasons for this possible ending. This struck me as most unfortunate. After releasing their likeable album last year and then delivering such a strong live performance it's hard not to see A Ritual Sea as a band really hitting their creative stride, so it would be a shame if they were to disappear just as they are showing such promise.

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