Lisa O'Neill - All of this is Chance

 

Spring is coming fast. Prepare yourselves. Meanwhile those of a nerdish disposition are already making lists before there are even any buds on the trees. Best Album of the Year? What in February? But there are many very good records out there already that it's probably little wonder that the kind of men who hang around in record shops are already making foolish statements. John Cale, Meg Baird and Robert Forster are my early favourites although no doubt, like early contenders in the Olympic Marathon, they will drop back into the pack further down the road. Cale is a definite contender despite, or possibly partly because of his venerable age. Things are changing in Rock & Roll.

Then there are the sub-categories. The doughty triers who are unlikely medal contenders but are still giving it all they've got in the early stages of 2023. Ireland's Lisa O'Neill deserves a mention here. She's an outsider with all the bookies, always has been really, but might be worth a punt.

I've known about Lisa for a few years. My sister, who's always astute with all things musical, tipped me off about her a while back. What she does is difficult to categorise but might be called 'Outsider Folk'. The kind of thing Karen Dalton, Joanna Newsom and Richard Dawson have excelled in down the years.

Her new album All of this is Chance is splendid in myriad ways. It could be described as dark. Folk Music often is. But there are shafts of light that occasionally break through the murkiness that are positively radiant. Just beautiful.

It's monstrously hammy throughout. It plays relentlessly on every Irish stereotype you can possibly think of and explores a few of its own for good measure. But O'Neill knows Irishness, or Oirishness, (if you prefer to think of it as that), like the back of her hand and makes excellent use of that arcane but wonderful knowledge to ramp up the record into something of a classic.

Sometimes it's all a bit too much. Something you can definitely say of Dalton, Newsom and Dawson too. It's not for the overly sensitive. When my sister saw O'Neill play, Kevin Rowland was in the audience. He's no stranger to hammy Oirishness when the mood takes him himself.  My sister ued the opportunity of spotting him to go up and thank him afterwards. For everything. Rowland is one of those who knows that here is something worthy of investment. It really is.