Clannad S&D

If you had asked me yesterday if I would have ever have asked this question I would have called you a lunatic but through Johny Trunk's amazing show on resonance fm i came across Atlantic Realm and its amazing. Ive had a big soft spot for synthy new age stuf but id never thought about my countrymen's output. Have they any other albums this good or is the only one which keeps the celtic influences at bay (apart from the admitably fantastic title track)?

pissed syntax central

http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/Mad%20Max.jpg

Come on some of you. Admit you have this in your closet somewhere.

The early trad stuff was too fiddly for me, and the later soundtracky stuff too smoothed-over and Enyal (but in both cases fine background music), but for me Macalla and Sirius are two different inspired sweet spots on the curve leading from folk twinkle towards new-age murmur. Thanks for reminding me to get them out again!

CLANNAD FUCKING RULE

TOWER HILL!

http://www.irishentertainment.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/clannad-audionetworks.jpg

I HAVE MYSTICAL VISIONS AND COSMIC VIBRATIONS

THEME

FROM

HARRY'S FUCKING GAME!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KpNzalFKPo

(i'm gonna buy a harp sing into the core of the earth)

(or something)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/CivmjbXXMz8/0.jpg

broing down w/ bono

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_klil_eOEY

^favourite bono cameo

bonio

Forgot how much I like the Harry's Game theme.

The good stuff is the early acoustic stuff. Back when they sounded like a bunch of Pentangle fans who thought they'd revisit an Irish heritage they were semi aware of so they wound up sounding like acoustic pop versions of traditional stuff in a delightful inauthentic way.
First lp is lovelty and I just discovered there's a 2cd pack of the next couple of lps put out in 2010 that sounds like the sound should be good if the snippets on Amazon are anything to go by.

speaking of the early stuff that sounded like a bunch of Pentangle fans, this is beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdOFwuN8Nb0

That was during the brief period when Enya was in the band before going off to do TV soundtracks and then becoming Enya. Isn't it funny how women settle on a hairstyle and then keep it forever? If I ever meet a woman I'm ask her why that is. I think like most British people who grew up in the 1980s I became aware of the band from Robin of Sherwood. The Americans had Miami Vice. We had Robin of Sherwood.

They seemed to mutate from a straightforward folk band, to a - yes - Pentangle / Renaissance prog-folk band, to the Clannad that everybody remembers, and then they became a kind of lightweight version of Fleetwood Mac with weaker songs and without the personal drama.

I have the impression that Pol Brennan was the key member, because after he left the band they became incredibly boring. He did a one-off album for Real World as Trisan, which was great and basically sounded like the moodier, instrumental bits of Clannad. I'd forgotten that they did what amounts to the theme song for Last of the Mohicans. Oddly despite the Irish theme pub / Corrs / B*Witched boom of the 1990s the band didn't seem capable of capitalising on that, perhaps because they had smoothed away the Irish elements by that point.

"Caislean Oir" is striking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI7D8YFxgAc

Was it in an episode of I'm Alan Partridge. Or was that Steeleye Span? It was Steeleye Span. Different band.

That was Steeleye's version of the carol Gaudete