Varo - Varo (2020)

While it is immediately obvious that the debut album from Varo stands out markedly from much of the traditional Irish music that has emerged in the last few years, it is less easy to explain how this is achieved. It may be to do with the fact that the pair are not actually Irish, that they bring an outsider’s clarity of vision and keenness of insight to a genre that sometimes falls foul of overemphasising its inherent nostalgia. But there is more to it than that, an ineffable quality that comes across as a barely-perceptible strangeness or otherness in tunes that will be familiar to many listeners.

Lucie Azconaga and Consuelo Nerea Breschi are from France and Italy respectively, and both sing and also play the fiddle. They met in Dublin and bonded over a shared love of Irish traditional music, and in a nod to their European roots named their collaboration after the river that forms the historical and cultural border between Italy and France. The shifting, unfixed quality of nationhood and belonging, the essential rootlessness of people, the mysterious movement of flowing water: all of these things inform an album of beautifully-rendered traditional songs.

The opening song, Ye Jacobites By Name is a perfect example of the adaptability and mutability of folk song. One of the most famous of James Hogg’s Jacobite Reliques, it was rewritten in 1791 by Robert Burns and is commonly set to a tune called My Love’s In Germany (originally intended for a poem of that name by Hector Macneill). Varo’s version makes use of a steady harmonium drone, but what really draws the listener in is the duo’s vocal harmonies. Breschi’s subtle use of bodhran gives the song a quietly stirring quality while also acknowledging its martial roots, and the whole thing has a balance, an almost classical symmetry (it comes as no surprise to learn that Azconaga comes from a musical background of classical music and jazz).

The wordless vocal harmonies and mournful fiddle that characterise Ben Hall’s Wake are somehow both restful and unnerving, while the instrumental Bidh Eoin Waltz has a melody that dips and twists, equal parts playful and stately. There is a touch of the medieval about it. And the traditional fiddle tune Considine’s Grove is a fine old reel bursting with the controlled energy that Irish music does so well. These instrumentals, along with the sprightly, blustery reel Return To Camden Town, are perfect examples of the duo’s innate musical understanding of each other, and of the source material. This is especially impressive, given the disparity of their backgrounds.

Once more the pair’s harmony singing is on show on The Doffing Mistress. A song from the industrial weaving mills, this version is subtly different in character to the well-known recordings by Anne Briggs and Maddy Prior but still retains its message of female working-class solidarity. Folk music has a necessary preoccupation with the underdog, and this theme is continued in The Streets Of Forbes, an Australian ballad about Ben Hall (who previously cropped up in the instrumental Ben Hall’s Wake). The song is rendered delicately, almost hauntingly, its plucked strings proceeding on tiptoe as it recounts the unlawful killing of the bushranger.

A take on the Irish ballad As I Roved Out is equally effective. The singing, and particularly the immaculate sense of timing, create dramatic tension out of minimal ingredients and familiar themes. Their version of the ever-popular Sovay is incredibly atmospheric, relying on a modernistic approach full of drone and darkness. It is a song that has been recorded hundreds of times, but it can rarely have been this moving. And the album closer The Rakes Of Clonmel/I Ne’er Shall Wean Her is a stunning set of jigs played with a genuine feel for the material, and a genuine love too.

Varo come from the same sphere of Dublin musicians that has recently given us the likes of Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds and Lankum, and while these acts are different in many ways, they all share a deep understanding of traditional music, and of how to balance the desire to preserve the genre’s heritage with the need to create a form of music that is fresh and new. It is an exciting time for Irish folk music, and Varo’s accomplished debut should position them at the forefront of the scene.