Thought I wouldn’t mention gigs in this blog for a while yet but after the manic night I had last night I have no choice. I want to. 3 bands playing good old fashioned rock n roll and heavy blues – in a small space that normally has a comfortable capacity of 60 – was jammed to the rafters with 140 sweating sardines. Body heat formed condensation on the windows, sticky body smells permeated through the walls, skin, clothes, eardrums were pummeled by heavy bass lines and heads and feet kicked out, up, where possible, with gusto.
I was at a meeting last night for a development that is currently underway in the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork. Corcadorca Theatre Company are setting up a New Theatre Development Centre in the venue. It’s an exciting venture for both the theatre community in the city as well as for the Triskel Arts Centre which, to be frank, has languished in the past number of years. Corcadorca are only one of three companies moving into the building the others being the independent record shop, Plug’d Records and The Black Mariah Gallery. All good news
It was an interesting meeting. I haven’t been to a collective meeting for some time as I find they’re often full of hot air and bluster with little being accomplished. Last night was not the case. A small number of people made the case for their practice and how they saw themselves fitting into the centre working while others made suggestions on how the centre might be run – ideas that were based on previous experiences in other venues across Ireland and elsewhere. I was there to offer our online resource as a means to get things done in terms of creative input, production, management and marketing. I am not involved in theatre but the idea of an open space for play, development and experimentation plays a large part in what our skills exchange is all about and I was keen to push that point home. We shall see in due course what happens.
I haven’t seen much since the New Year. I haven’t been out at all. Been laying low. The only thing I’ve been to is my own gigs which I host every Thursday and Friday night at a small venue in the City. And I’m not pushed about scribbling about it. It’s what I do. Another time perhaps. What I have been indulging in though is my Christmas book pile. I did very well out of Santas little book elf and I’m currently driving through them, eating them up, devouring them, oh such pleasure! So, with my books in mind I thought I’d mention a novel that I’ve just finished, that I’m sorry to see go. The book is called ‘Matterhorn’ by Karl Marlantes. It’s a novel about the Vietnam War. A war that is now part of popular culture for many reasons not least because it served to focus civil unrest and confrontation against the political and social establishment in America during the late 60s and early 70s. Of course in the 80s and 90s it was the subject of many successful Hollywood films, songs and documentaries and now it is the focus of a book which took the author – who was himself a highly decorated marine in Vietnam - over 30 years to write
The novel tells the story of a young second Lieutenant, Waino Mellas, an officer with dreams of wartime glory that he believes will help him reach a nice stateside career after his tour ends. It is what happens to Mellas during his first two months in the country that Marlantes uses to describe the futility of politicized and “limited” warfare: the taking of dubious objectives in countless missions to Search and Destroy. It’s been said that in war, all victory is fleeting, but for the Bravo Company – whose average age, like the song, is 19 – it’s not even momentarily satisfying. Victory means establishing a firebase on Matterhorn (and other hills), digging fortifications, abandoning them to the enemy then taking them back three days later. They don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish, and in the end they don’t care. They merely endure. The novel is a sustained depiction of the drudgery of jungle warfare. The men of Bravo endure leeches, tigers, diarrhoea, jungle rot, cerebral malaria, malnutrition, dehydration, starvation, exhaustion, immersion foot, exposure to Agent Orange and stupidity run amok (and that’s before combat). Senior officers define their objective simply (to kill ‘gooks’) and micromanage their troops incessantly, radios crackling with requests for body counts even in the middle of fire fights.
It’s actually gathering momentum. I’m delighted. We’ve started an emerging band competition that’s going to be kicking off in late February. It’s called SOUND IT OUT! The idea being that the 3 winning bands will get a support slot in a number of music festivals later in the year as well as a load of promotion and radio play. The best thing about it is the eagerness of everyone to get involved. For no other reason than it’s a good idea. It keeps my faith in people. Venues, online music ezines, music forums, radio DJs and sound gear companies are all helping out, all getting coming together in a time of hardship when everyone’s back is against the wall. It’s a testament to co-operation and collective goodwill. It’s exciting and the start of something new and fresh which, no matter what happens, will be alot of fun.
It’s January. Things are hard for many people, myself included. The government is on its knees, the opposition aren’t much of an alternative, our whole political system is fundamental flawed and needs a radical overhaul (which we all know won’t happen as vested interests are both literally and metaphorically part of the political genetic code of this country). We’re in a crisis debt situation with the IMF and Europe, there are no jobs, emigration numbers are rising, while small businesses are closing just as fast. So, in light of that I’ve decided to list 10 things that make me smile from the bottom of my belly. Small things that open my eyes to the majesty and wonder of the everyday:
Okay. The Trash Culture Revue. What? Yes, our mutantspace.com DIY festival. It’s our 3rd festival and it’s happening from Thursday 5th – Sunday 8th May in Cork. The festival is made up of whatever mutantspace.com members decide to do: everything and anything. To date we’ve had; feasts, talks, storytelling, spoken word, film shorts, poetry, theatre, music, circus, Bloomsday celebrations, BBQs, installations and new collaborations across artforms. Some of it worked. Some of it didn’t. But that’s not the point. The point is that we, as a co – operative, created a space and hosted events, gigs and more on the basis of a gift exchange. No money was spent, no funding was sought. We were free, we are free. Members hosted, performed, managed, designed, promoted and volunteered. All for nothing. All for the need, the desire, to make things happen in their place, to change things, to open new ways of producing creative projects and events, to making their mark on the cultural landscape. To get together and celebrate, party.
The fact of the matter is that many of the medium to large size festivals in this country have been co-opted by commercial forces intent on selling product while State intervention is continually pushing cultural activity into a generic industry that produces something that can be sold to people under the moniker of ‘cultural tourism’. The idea, the art, the visual, the sound, the life, the soul, the people and above all the place are no longer important. It is how much we can all make out of the carefully marketed product. It is an industry.
I don’t blame or condemn festivals for the difficult position they are in but I do question their lack of lateral thinking. At present festivals are trapped in a system that demands certain management structures and economic targets that are designed to create a clean, shiny product for market. With this pressure festivals will always take the safe option thus negating what festivals should truly be about; a celebration of mark making, of culture in a temporary space, a place. Festivals need to belong, grow out of their own place. It seems to me that most festivals in this country could be picked up and put down anywhere at all without any change of colour or form. They do not belong. Rather they wander from sponsor to sponsor. There is no philosophy, no sense of where they are, who they are or what they’re doing it for – their culture is generic. Homogenous. It can happen anywhere.
I loved ‘Freedom’ by Jonathan Franzen. Like its predecessor, ‘The Corrections’, it is essentially a social-realist family saga about a depressive, entropic midwestern family, the Berglunds, being swallowed and digested by the insatiable appetite of modernity. A comic – tragic tale that is as engrossing as any page turning thriller.
It is 10 years since ‘The Corrections’ caused a literary sensation – and Franzen became a household name – and in the intervening years I had forgotten how skilled he is at being able to create such comprehensively realised psychologies for each of his characters. It is what makes reading him so addictive.
7.01.11 Tonight is the inaugural monthly Mutant Cabaret produced by mutantspace.com and the Glor Sessions. I’m nervous. The Mutant Cabaret was borne out of our bi – annual DIY festival, The Trash Culture Revue. A means by which all mutantspace.com members interested in performing anything from spoken word to noise, rock to theatre, experimental collaborations to short stories could take to the stage and try it out, give it a go, play a little. So far it’s worked. But now that we’re hosting it on a monthly basis it’s going to be altogether different. Different good. I hope people come tonight. I really do, I really hope. Everyone is broke, it’s cold and the year yawns before us. Let’s hope we don’t get gobbled up.
9.01.11 It went really well. People came. They travelled from far and wide. What a relief. It’s not easy getting people to come out on a wet, cold January night to a spoken word and music gig. So how did it work? Well the incomparable Stephen James Smith MCed the event with great style, confidence and attitude and we split the night into two; music, poetry, break, poetry, music. First to hit the lights was Cork musician Luke Cosgrave who played a solo version of his band Novella Hermosa; the catchy hooks and lyrics making us all consider the affect we have on the lives of others. Right up after him was Kalle Ryan, a wonderful poet, who had us all shouting to his funny, poignant and engaging spoken word. Break. Smoke. Pint. Chitter chatter. And back to the gig and some hard hitting spoken word from Stephen. From there we were brought straight into the beautiful, sublime and richly textured music of Fiach Moriarty. To finish up the official acts part of the night we had the one and only Fergus Costello; sacred space maker, poet and musician who gave us his uniquely funny take on everything that is wrong with our culture of greed, arrogance, stupidity and ignorance.
Hilary Williams. January 6th 2011. For Mutant Space.
Yesterday there was a part eclipse of the sun as I was driving up to Glen Cullen in County Dublin. I was tempted to just glance at it, I had put sun glasses on but even a quick squint was a bit foolish as it was considerably bright and left an image of a bright orb in my eye view for some time. My golf suffered as a consequence, but hopefully not my retina. Just thinking about how I see the world. Maybe its part hereditary. My father was a visual artist who sort of trained me to really look at the world, to notice the odd, to see beauty in the mundane, to observe and make my own work, ideas from life. Art is life, Life is art. I was tested in Primary school for my IQ, I was never sure why, they took a bunch of us and we had to answer questions, do puzzles, maths and writing. I never found how I did. I do remember being told I was a “Visual Learner.” It sort of helped me visualise things into imaginative work, but regular learning by rote and maths left me far behind.
I spent the last few weeks over Christmas with my now extended Californian relations, We were all there, a collective bunch of our three children, their three partners and three Grandsons. The camera becomes as much used as mobile phones, every special moment is catalogued for the future. Maybe we will have too many images, those children will be sick of the goofy pictures their parents, aunts and yes I am guilty as a fond grandmother too.
This month winter jugged beef is our delicious skills exchange recipe – it makes perfect comfort food
I hope that you didn’t over-eat as much as I did during the Festive Season! However, notwithstanding my excesses, I pleasurably survived and indeed now find myself in the doldrums. January tends to be like that does it not? The weather seems to get worse, the short days more miserable and, of course, there is not even Christmas to look forward to. It is the time of year when I think of warmth by the hearth, a good book and rich, hot food.
I was recently introduced to jugged beef. This was a new one on me. The only other time I had come across this culinary term, jugged, was in relation to hare. However, I am reliably informed that it simply means cooked slowly in a tightly covered pan and could thus apply equally well to almost any meat. Anyway, the recipe that follows requires shin beef which, although costing less than the normal stewing steaks, is absolutely right for this dish. Any other form of beef would develop that dull, fibrous quality. Shin has enough connective tissue to cook down to a silky, textured casserole with a deep flavour.
This month we’re delighted to serve you up a series of delicious onion recipes from our regular skills exchange chef and food writer
As we reach the heart of an extraordinary winter, the morning soil is brittle and it’s bounty sparse. Beetroot, cabbage, spuds, sprouts, parsnips and winter squash are dripping into markets, but little else; it’s a time then when edible imports are utilised more than ever.
From a couple of generations back the ramifications of a long icy winter would be as real in-side the kitchen as out-side. It’d be wrong to romanticise such times but they were at least times when the home kitchen was (necessarily) engaged with the rhythms of the changing seasons and they are a fine example of when a narrow framework can bolster the imagination. The preserves of late summer – cured fish, salt beef, pickled vegetables, jams, syrups and vinegars – gave life to the kitchen even on the leanest winter days. Now winter larders of spices, oils, garlic, pulses and tinned Italian tomatoes are a blessing, it’s as good a time as any to look abroad for culinary inspiration (and revitalise the perhaps jaded January palate).
A common January buzz seems to be ‘comfort food’. What exactly does it mean? Food that lacks pretence? Food cooked with love? Food which in cooking and eating steadies and satisfies? Aren’t these all attributes of home cooking generally? Perhaps it’s only an idea to re-engage us with the very basics of cooking – and their intrinsic emotional content. A departure from the glossy food magazine garnishes and wacky flavour combinations, towards an appreciation of the process of cooking. If so, then for me comfort food is frying onions. That is the smell that so easily wafted through the purposely shut kitchen door bringing with it hunger and curiosity and beckoned me in to first peer over the stove as a five year old. It needs those two culinary attributes – control of heat and patience – that are essential for such unadulterated alchemy.
Onions, beetroot, butter beans and sorrel
I first tried this one by cooking the onions in the embers of a fire for a day and night. Apart from the fact that there aren’t many real fires in doors left, they didn’t turn out cooked too evenly and needed a bit of touching up. An oven is of course much more reliable, but if you do have a fire its worth chucking a whole load of embers in with the onions for baking so they can impart a little bit of smokiness.
Pop the onions – whole and unpeeled – in a baking tray, cover them and put in a hot oven, after an hour turn the heat down to low and leave them in over night. They’re sugary juices will render, reduce and caramelise inside the skin, when they’re ready they should be soft to the touch all over.
Soak some butter beans overnight, you don’t need many here, just four or five per serving, but they’re versatile as can be so it’s often worth cooking more and using them for other things.
The beetroot need a shallow braise/bake in a quite high oven until tender, so pop them in a baking dish, again whole and with skins on, and fill half way with water, season well with salt and pepper and cover with tin foil. When they are ready and have cooled a little peel them with your hands and cut into quarters lengthwise.
Boil the butter beans hard in unseasoned water for twenty minutes, skim, and then simmer them until tender (some garlic, bay and rosemary in the pot too will take to them fondly). When they’re tender leave them in their liquor to cool, otherwise their skins will pop and shrivel, but season the liquor with salt and a little vinegar.
When ready to serve peel the onions and chop in half – lay each half flat-side up on the plate (this can of course be served in a big serving dish) add to them a couple off beetroot quarters, a few butter beans and a couple of fine leaves of sorrel. Sprinkle a bit of flaky salt over the onions and drizzle over it all a little bit of a light simple dressing.
Winter Solstice. Northern Hemisphere. December 2011 P.C.E.. Last of the shortest days. The longest night is over.
The celebration was a run around.
A goose-stepping, marching, jumping, curling, winding, turning, bending, tossing, up and down arching, giggling scrunch upon soft, powdery white falling gently quiet beneath the silver moon. Dark green, perpendicular pines perfectly silhouette black shadow contrast with bright, twinkling ground, a land, sky inversion, snowballs, a charcoal-eyed snowman, two in the morning, their first ever silent, sublime SnowScape. Citrus and date palm saplings, pomegranates, under the row of mother trees, that the tall ones will keep care of the little babies. Long haul back to spring.
Below unusually effervescent lines of rocky hills, across mesmerised lawns, in houses still and shut, adjacent residents resolutely asleep under thickly layered roofs.
The cavorters retreat to warmth and hot chocolate. They nibble timid bites of strong, sweet ginger gavotte.*1 On the counter, bottles of annual nutty, tangy, tarty, zesty red seasonal preserve produce,*2 cranberries from Wisconsin.
With forty one days to February 11, 2011 and the start of the final Tzolkin in the Mayan Great Cycle Long Count Calendar,*3 ‘the EU has passed the Codex Alimentarius directive that comes into effect in April 2011, banning herbal and mineral supplements and homoeopathic medicines and the teaching of alternative healing methods including homoeopathy’.*4
And so it’s time to take breath, play, rest. An acerbica intermissive.
The editor’s preface to the print edition of ‘sendings from acerbica’:
from Saturday, 5 June, to Friday, 19 – Saturday, 27 November 2010 P.C.E., to January 2011 P.C.E. - 10 Oc, 8 Caban, 3 Chicchan, 4 Chicchan:*3
…could it ever have been anticipated that eye-witness, authentic accounts of the brutal barbarity of Apartheid would bring down the mercury even a drop on the thermometer that measures heat of global atrocity, never mind that those race supremacists subsequently might appear incongruously temperate when compared to that which truly bubbles away at the incendiary centre of global goings on.*5
In a PS at Fie(5a)*6 sending’s sources say that they “…have been on extensive foray through the cavernous membranes that cajole between different dispensations that jostle in contra-distinctory disarray in the worlds between worlds of converging eras in the 21st century P.C.E. societal display of diversity within humanity on 4.5 billion years old planet Earth”.
Geographicality, station, an era distanced Queen in power; peons are fed illusion, gross inaccuracies, primped and primed to chase after aristocracy wealth wager by war; they embark evacuation of enormous emigration exploit, to seize control of seafaring drug traffic routes, to plunder, ravage, vanquish resource for The Britannia Consortium, gems, gold, metals, minerals, to impose rule by ruthless, thug economy; English forebear 1820 settlers hit the shores of a southern African scene seeing leave to rise in status and fortune by over lording a slave caste labour force, but they are clueless to see through the upper class ruse that has duped them buffer class into rank and file, colonial servitude.*7
150 years of upwardly tussling charade façade that bequeaths “macabre caverns, sane side of fantasy”,*8 minority middle class mediocrity, moiling mass ménage mirage mentality, hallucinates its prejudice bears credibility, alongside the prognosis of a very real speciality - when a child – misunderstood – something to say – to tell – how? in the face of no one who could see or hear very well – they make ‘Lizzie’ drink her tea out of a tin mug in the scullery – it’s blatant skulduggery. Colonial girl ‘at sea’, “who’s messin’ with me?” Should she scream, “Mister, Mister, wake up, wake up!”, would 007 dash to the scene? Ah, but this brand of illicit, covert terror has long been seen by some, known by any other name, ‘spooks’.*7
Controlled convention enacted by intention, cultural intervention, learned retention, silent, oral, written. Literature studies, archetypal tale collections, themes, expositions, damsel in the tower, the dungeon, the underground, the confessional, assault on the love story, power.
When a source will sprout and flow out 405 intense words*6 in one, fastidiously intelligible sentence, well, for a writer that’s 2410 written characters expressing telling of but an infinitesimal of a life being lived, encountering foible, obstacle, hindrance, vagueness, contradiction, confusion, art word music voice craft creativity, joy, the doing, sharing, what and how to eat, what others eat and do and how, need, supply, consumption, what reality is, fabrication vs fact, questions, questioning, questioning that suggests, a suggesting which may pervade that which pertains as investigative community emerges, identifies its caucus, defines, gains grouping, momentum; social strata policies, behaviour, by some upon others, sexuality, what is it, where comes it from, what is it for, why and by whom is it being tampered with, for what, how can it be restored to its purpose, which is what, does it have a higher purpose and what has all of this got to do with everything else, seeking, finding, notching negotiation of necessary negligibles even to the most ordinary of basic household equipment, implements, tools, in recurring moments of diurnal, domestic application, water boiling, energy, baking, vocation, occupation, gigs, labour, leisure, sensations, lifestyles, communications, eschatological immensities, working it all out… *9-15
World Wide Web. How and why some people see stuff – global élite groups push guile overdrive tactical ushering in of their ‘new world order’, as they term it, self-asserting their presupposing all importance; by clan-destined conspiring they preside, live-it-up, their antics nearly comical, viewed from an all-seeing, cosmological eye, they too would be but minions.*13 Some people see stuff, others not, they ignore, don’t want to, won’t, can’t, going way back, stipulated fundamentalism patrols the genes to interpolate records. ‘History’.
Not waking from sci-fi, horror, nightmare of monstrous proportions, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, ‘Stepford Wives’. Shock. Utter, steely cold rage as globalists screed the human race of its resource, its labour, its output, its harvest, then screed the race of its ebullient, noble zest, reducing it to baseness, then screed again till a minimum, servile number remain, compliant, doing unquestioningly as bidden, mere scree littering the bottom of a downhill, mutated, trans-human, zombies. Alerts, warnings, rebuttals refute non-responsive entropy sloughing to deadness, rebuke a viral seethe of haughty nastiness building, underneath, inside, infecting Camus one to one, till every last person is ‘The Outsider’. The acerbicans receive an email from a friend, ‘Buitelanders – it seems at times unfathomable terrain – how you, that Canadian lass, feel there, strange, my experiences this side too – I just know I’ve been spoken to by superiors, colleagues, the public, with the most disrespect I’ve ever been unfortunate to be on the receiving end of – it’s a very high horse some people have looked down at me from – to be able to, be allowed to, want to, need to reach the core, the light, the tick, that innerness of people, seems a very, very rare gift, one I see very little of around me’.
XKCD We had a lot of Beano and 2000AD at home when I was growing up, so I’ve probably always expected more than just a few chuckles from the funnies. Not that you could really describe 2000AD as a ‘funnies’ kind of comic. It’s the birthplace of Judge Dredd (ERASE that Sylvester Stallone movie from your head!), was a gathering of various dystopian science fiction visions of the future; a serialised graphic novel of Bladerunner would have fitted in quite well. I had two older brothers who were into them so consequently never had to actually buy them myself. Result. ANYWAY. Comic strips that make you laugh, cry, think and splutter tea all over your laptop have ever since been close to my heart. Bill Wattersons’ ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ is also well worth a gander. If you’d like to get a daily dose of something similar I recommend XKCD. It’s a strip with stick people about life, hard sums, geeks and all-round nerdiness that sometimes goes waaaaaayy over my head (my geek elder brother can usually explain them to me), but usually ticks at least one of the laugh, cry, think, tea splutter boxes each day.
Letters of Note Letters of Note “is an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos”. When they say fascinating, they mean fascinating. Captain Scotts (the guy who died after being second to the south pole) last letter to his wife, (To: My widow) – John Lennons irate note to the launderers who turned his white shirt yellow, (Yoko Ono does not sweat) – Iggy Pops heartwarming missive to a 21 year old fan going through a rough patch, (Hang on, my love, and grow big and strong). This site makes my day sometimes.
New Year, new hope and endless possibilities. We hope. I hope. This is going to be a tough year for everyone, including myself, and is going to need all the creativity and ingenuity we can muster to make it though. Already I am worried. Already I am thinking about bills, unpaid taxes, future earnings, bread and butter gigs that are no longer guaranteed, where the next job is going to come from, when the next job is going to come in and so on. There is no safety net, no default position. This is it. This is real. This is unknown territory. It always seems easier when you’re young; easier to be broke, live in squalor, survive on basics. But now as somebody who is nearly 40 with wife and child and a belly that is drifting outwards and southwards due to years of excess I find myself wandering through blighted memories of disgusting bedsits, dinners of instant soup and crap bread, flagons of cider, cheap tobacco, working like a dog building carnival puppets from scrap found in skips and wondering if I can do it all over again. These photographic memories are best left in the past. Once was fun. Once was enough. Once was a good lesson. I don’t think I can do it again but know that if I have to I will.
Carosel: Star EP A new sound but the right direction…STAR, is the latest release from French bound band Carosel. Hailing from both sides of the pond, Ireland & France, these pair really know how to take a tune and popify it. They kind of tick all the boxes too; good looking, great image and most capable of writing great radio songs, all = very marketable. They are also quirky enough to be intriguing. This rel date was originally penned for last year but with developments and a worldwide management deal plus a move to Paris, they changed it to Jan 28th 2011 to be released in both France and Ireland.
Following the massive success of their debut album Kaleidoscope in 2008, which has seen them be embraced by radio, all the broadsheets and guest appearances on National TV shows such as The Late Late Show, Two Tube and RED TV, CAROSEL will digitally release STAR in early 2011 as a special edition EP on iTunes.
Pete Mc Grane’s vast and impressive array of melodious instrumentation along with front woman Michelle Phelan’s ‘crystal clear vocals (slightly similar to FEIST & Karen Carpenter- but she gets away with it) set the bar instantly high for the EP. Their music ‘is what is it’- perfect simple POP music designed to get them a few steps up the International ladder. (Well that is their plan anyway – it’s a hard slog out there in the mainstream world, so I for one hope it works out for them).
Unlike their last release, with this one they slightly push the sinister boat out a bit, by way of lyrical means. With re-vamped songs like Take Me, Something I Need, Easy As It Flows and the brand new Star (written about Pete Doherty and Katie Price); it is quite clear to see that Carosel are ready to step it up a notch and are well on their way to gaining notable grounds on the International market. It’s also nice to see that the EP boasts new lyrics and more adventurous instrumentation and vocals.
My favourite tune on the EP is hard to pick because they each have their own placement. Some fabulous reworks and well-rounded reproductions show off this bands potential far better that the debut album which was rather shy at times, but none the less won over all the critics and landed them album of the week on RTE 1 and 2. Lets hope that this EP will signal great things to come for album no.2, but in the meantime and if you’re a fan, this EP will surely please. If you have never heard of them, go find them now. If you are into Feist, Kate Nash, Lily Allen or the likes, then sure enough you will ‘get’ what CAROSEL’S music is about.
Gentry Morris: Awake ‘O’ Sleeper This sentence may be overused and unwarranted for some, but when I say that Gentry Morris in an insatiable and delectable song smith of the highest standard – I mean it! Gentry Morris’ third album, simply takes hold of you and refuses to let you go.
Hailing from South Georgia in the USA, Gentry moved to Bangor, Northern Ireland, in his mid 20s. Having honed his talent by touring the States for several years, including a stint in Nashville, he now calls Ireland home. The notion and possibility that Morris might eventually pull a Josh Ritter or a David Gray – both artists used Ireland as a starting base at the beginning of their careers – seems plausible when you listen to his music. It’s a simple heartfelt box of musical delicacies delivered in an original voice that commands attention.
Its not a country album and its not folk, its somewhere in the midst of commercially viable acoustic music. ‘Awake O Sleeper’ is a beautifully self produced album that uses acoustic instrumentation to the full, leaving you with vibrant soft lush sounds which blends with Gentry’s vocals. Guest Vocals come in from Our own Juliet Turner. Stand out tracks: Fools Gold, Lie, Dervishes. Truly a splendid array of songs. And excellent third album that can seriously place this musician on the map.
