Nightnoise

In the mid 1990s, there was a married couple on the kibbutz who used to run a cassette library on Saturday mornings (and at some stage I computerised their library and lending records). Although most of the cassettes that they had were classical, there were also some from other types of music. I used to borrow a few cassettes every week or so, hoping to find some new music to like.

And I did: 'The parting tide' by the American/Irish group Nightnoise. I imagine that it was shortly after hearing that cassette that I ordered the CD from Windham Hill (according to my records, 1 Oct 1995); I used to play it frequently. Eventually the penny dropped and I looked for other discs by this group - I found three more. I ripped one of the discs to mp3 several years ago and these tracks found their way onto my mp3 players, so I hear them every few months.

I even met the guitarist of the group, Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, when he and another musician (probably the violinist Kevin Burke) came to play a concert in Israel. At the time I was in my Irish music phase - along with Lunasa - so I was very enthusiastic. Ó Domhnaill signed the various cd sleeves and music book that I brought along with me.

For reasons of neglect, I haven't listened to 'The parting tide' for maybe twenty years, so the other day when I was digging through my archives for a certain disc to rip, I found this along with its siblings and ripped them all. I'm listening to 'The parting tide' now and really enjoying it.

And whilst not really paying attention, I noticed that one instrumental, 'The kid in the cot' was in 54 time; or was it? It seems that there are alternating bars of 54 and 64, although I wouldn't go so far as to call this 114. Very sophisticated. Like everything else these days, it's available for listening to on YouTube, apparently uploaded only a year ago. Listening to it again, it sounds now like a phrase consisting of four bars of three beats each, only that the second bar has dropped a beat. And almost without listening, I realised that the second part of 'This just in' from the 'Shadow of time' is in a rollicking 54 rhythm.

The genre of music that Nightnoise played is described as New Age Irish; most of the time one can hear the melodies of Irish traditional music filtered through the sensibilities of the digital age. Listen to 'The kid in the cot' - the first two minutes are Irish, then at 2:09 there's a very modern section that lasts until about 2:49. Then's it back to Irish themes.

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