The first event I saw a concert on the Thursday evening saw a collection of acts that would not have been out of place at the greatly missed Hunter's Moon festival. First up was Aoife Wolf, who was probably the person on the bill I was most interested in seeing, as her recorded work suggests she is an artist of great promise. Unfortunately for me, her set started at 7.00 pm and I arrived at 7.20, which meant I missed most of her short set. I did at least catch her doing a song written on a haunted piano and an impressive cover of Sinéad O'Connor's "Mandinka". Check her out on Bandcamp.
Next there was Natalia Beylis and Eimear Reidy. Reidy played cello while Beylis played keyboards and electronic stuff. This was an amazingly immersive piece of work that I would have happily listened to all evening. From chatting to other attendees I sensed that this collaboration had a strong impact on everyone who heard it, even those who were unfamiliar with the previous work of each musician. "Oh my God, that was amazing, what was it?" was a typical reaction. Their album Whose Woods These Are is worth the time it would take you to investigate it.
Then came Adrian Crowley, playing on his own but with some pre-prepared accompaniment. He is an odd figure: a fixture on the Irish music scene but someone who has neither become very successful nor slunk away into the margins as an embittered eccentric muttering about how the business failed him. Instead he just keeps going on, playing to his fans and popping up at events like this. To some extent I find the idea of Adrian Crowley more interesting than the music he makes, but it's not as though I have ever properly investigated it. His stage demeanour is intriguing, an odd but appealing blend of nervousness and confidence. He has an extensive back catalogue.
And finally Anna Mieke. She sings songs and plays guitar and she had other musicians playing with her. For me she suffered from being so late on the bill at a point where I was a bit *tired*, but I think her work might replay further investigation. Her guitar playing in particular is very impressive. She is also on Bandcamp.
I should note that I was somewhat star struck during the above concert as I think I was sitting across an aisle from Cormorant Tree Oh, hardly a household name but an artist of singular talent who would have fitted well onto the night's bill.
I sat out Music Town on Friday, but did go to another concert on the Saturday. This turned out to be a mistake as instead of the Hunter's Moon adjacent stuff of the Thursday this was all entry level music for young people. The draw for me was I Dreamed I Dream being on the bill, as I found them entertaining when I saw them supporting the Wormholes in the National Concert Hall. They are an all woman punk-influenced band from Cork with terrifying hair and an appealing art-rock ethos. I quite enjoyed their set but after they finished I felt increasingly out of place and left for the comfort of my pipe and slippers.
On the last night of the festival I saw Crash Ensemble performing Philip Glass's Glassworks. This is a six movement piece from 1982 written by Glass to push his music to a wider audience. The individual movements are fairly self-contained and the piece is album length (originally the cassette release was mixed specifically for Walkman listeners). The opening piano piece sounded familiar without feeling like it was doing the Philip Glass fast-slow thing, and was then echoed by the closer. The middle sections were doing the fast-slow thing, combined with non-verbal vocals and the like. The instruments used by the small ensemble involved both traditional instruments and synthesisers; I would love to know how the scoring worked for the latter.
Maybe now when you know Koyaanisqatsi backwards this all feels almost cosily familiar in style terms, but you can see how Glassworks would have blown people's minds back in 1982. Even with the familiarity Glass's music enjoys now this still packed a punch, making this a candidate for live performance of the year.
So that was it for Music Town. I felt I only scratched the surface with the festival, as there were other evening concerts I missed, as well as ones happening in the afternoon. There was also a whole jazz strand that I completely failed to engage with, for all that I wuv jazz. I'm not sure Music Town entirely gelled as a festival, feeling more like a series of disparate gigs with not much of an overlapping theme. I would be curious as to how much overlap there was between the audiences of the separate concerts; my impression is not much. That might perhaps be addressed in future Music Town festivals by the introduction of all-in ticketing, though that might lead to its own complications.
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