In Brief
Lorcán Mac Mathúna is a shaman of Sean-Nós [Old-Style Gaelic singing], who conjures a world of intense emotions coloured by mythology and legend. This “Song Arcahaeologist’s” voice “offers sanctuary” (Die Zeit), and his songs make you inhabit scenes from arcane worlds of old Celtic myth and romance.
In a craeer of wide ranging collaborations, composition, and performance, he has: released seven studio albums; composed more than ten commissioned projects, and; directed multiple artistic projects.
In projects he has directing he has worked with youth groups, music and educational organisations, elderly communities, creative writing, and disadvantaged schools, visual artists, and traditional and contemporary dancers.
About
An attendee at the premier performance of one of Lorcán’s projects, An Táin, described the effect of his voice:
"Lorcan MacMathuna gathers from the air something which is older than the Tain - ageless, primaeval and haunting. He has caught and manifest for us a sound which is fundamental; which has existed since men and women first sang - sang to express what they felt and what they knew to be true. It is the music of mythology - all the cadences of history and prehistory residing in one man's voice. It calls to the soul. And the soul answers. And we are privileged to listen and to hear in our own blood and in the fibres of our understanding."
From the cradle Lorcán Mac Mathúna was surrounded by Sean-Nós. He spent many years listening and absorbing before he even attempted to sing in public. Both his parents were well known and enthusiastic practitioners of the Sean-Nós heritage, and Sean-Nós singing was the accompanying soundscape of his youth.
Forget the steryotypes of Irish music. Forget the pub atmosphere, sessions, and ballads. Lorcán and his band will show you a deeper more hidden side of Irish music; a musical world of rich and powerful singing, and sumptuous arrangements that draw deeply from the well of Gaelic culture.
The effect of Lorcán Mac Mathúna’s live singing was described as “letting ghosts out” by Germany’s top Folk and World Music Magazine, Folker. Lorcán’s approach to the ancient and ornate Irish tradition of Sean-Nós, combined with beautiful tight arrangements of his own compositions have earned him high praise internationally. A powerful and “expressive voice”, whose music shows “a remarkable fluency in both traditional, and contemporary and experimental forms” (fROOTS), his sound lies somewhere in the space between the Gloaming and Deniz Prigent.
His ability to invoke the imagined world of the ancient bards was described by Die Zeit thus “Lorcán Mac Mathúna offered sanctuary. Surrounded by creaking pews and galleries, the Irish song archaeologist was breathing ancient Gaelic ballads. Spirit horses were galloping through fog and bog, warriors were fencing for days on end, chopped heads could not be silenced.” -Christoph Dieckmann; Die Zeit, Nr. 30, 14 July, 2016
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