Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Defiance can be viewed as a state of grace in a world that still, for the main, objects to non-conformity, the ability to be other than what a portion of society demands, craves as if hooked on an ideal that does not make sense, that is beyond any reason in today’s society. It is almost as we have clung on to the insanity that pervades the dogmatic Victorian era, a timespan etched into the annals of history, but which was truly a patriarchy hiding in plain sight of imagined petticoats and stern sour-faced mourning.
To seek a commemoration, to perform tribute with a sense of gladness for the time spent together rather than the moments that will be lost may seem on the face of it, strange, unseemly to some whose ideals are entrenched in a system that should have long been since discarded. However, the service of remembrance is one that is not up to society but up to the relationship between the two whose love, whose fights, whose connection towers above all.
It is this connection, strung together piece by piece by Inversions, of conversations, one sided and contrary to how such a piece might be viewed across the periods of time, which makes it an absolute pleasure to come across, to see how you can change your mind when you share the experience with others. It is an experience well worth delving into as Belinda O’ Hooley, one of the modern greats of the 21st Century era of the poetical and political Folk movement, dons her own songs and captivates completely with songs and moments of introspection such as Felingerrig, Skibbereen, Cadair Idris, The Hills of Greenmore and Pipistrelles at 6pm.
The feeling of exceptionalism that drifts easily between the conscious of the listener is perhaps for some too dramatic sense of praise, and yet as a composer she has few serious rivals, not that Belinda O’ Hooley would ever see the world in such a fashion herself and yet it must be noted just how the music is celebrated, whether in her observations of nature, the passing of her father, which is exquisitely framed in the song The Swallow’s Tail, and such rebellion that the fire is infectious, consuming and entirely charming.
A magnificent album, one that gets to grips with moments that remain passively unspoken. Magnificent!
Belinda O’ Hooley will be performing at the Philharmonic Music Room on September 17th.
Belinda O’ Hooley releases Inversions via No Masters on 28th June.
Ian D. Hall