Moundabout, the duo featuring Gnod's Paddy Shine from Phil Masterson follow the success of last years album 'Flowers Rot, Bring Stone' with an incredible new long player called 'An Cnoc Mór'.
Watch the John O'Carroll made video for 'Sacred & Profane', the first track to be revealed from the album via the always reliable The Quietus, who also interview the duo here:
'An Cnoc Mór' is available on ltd edition Mushroom coloured vinyl via the link below or from all good record shops:
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Moundabout’s glorious second long player is named after Cnoc Mór na nGaibhlte (or The Big Hill Of The Galtees) an imposing sandstone and shale peak in Munster, from which vantage point the horizon retreats to impossible-seeming distances. Paddy Shine, of psychedelic powerhouse GNOD, and Phil Masterson, of cult groups Los Langeros, Damp Howl and Bisect, chose this as base camp for their latest expedition into a new form of psychedelic Irish folk music. Inside a “yurt-like structure” they began recording, with Shine also making field recordings in places where “the energy felt good”. It is one of Ireland’s tallest mountains (the 12th at 918m above sea level to be precise) and prized by hill walkers as being one of Ireland’s 13 ‘Munros’. Masterson adds that one of Moundabout’s more memorable hikes was to the top of The Big Hill on a day it was so windy they could barely stand up straight, and then on the way back down the pair became “pleasantly lost”.
It is this getting lost in liminal zones, at thresholds, where boundaries merge, that is key to the Moundabout sound. The Galtees is an Irish mountain range where the counties Tipperary, Cork and Limerick, while their debut album, which drew inspiration from Irish neolithic culture of passage tombs and burial mounds Flowers Rot, Bring Me Stones, was recorded in Roscommon at the junction between counties Westmeath, Offaly and Galway. Shine adds: “We seem to have found ourselves recording and finishing albums in places where the boundaries have become blurry.”
The set up of Shine on acoustic guitar, Masterson on electric guitar, both on vocals and sparse electronic accompaniment from antique Hammond drum machine Shine found in his auntie’s attic and old analogue synth, plus field recordings, remains the same but this time the pair push further out on tracks such as ‘Step In Out Of That’ which calls to mind Egypt-based free psych trio The Dwarfs Of East Agouza and reaches its apogee on the glorious, sunburst of New Weird Éirana ‘Instinct, Eye And Mind’ which treads in the footsteps of Michael Chapman at his most ragged and echoes the borderless fourth world guitar peregrinations of Mike Cooper.
If the voyage that Flowers Rot took us on was one out of modernity into a vibrant megalithic antiquity, it feels like 'An Cnoc Mór' is taking us even further back. Masterson says: “These hills were hills long before homo sapiens set foot on them, gave them names and stories and insulted them with egotistic concepts such as ‘conquering them’.” The pair agree that getting out into the environment is an essential ingredient in the Moundabout process, although one thing has changed. Masterson puts it simply: “This album was made by two sober boys after a big hike up a big hill.” Shine elucidates: “Drink and drugs had been slowing me down and
really not inspiring me at all. I don’t think we need that stuff to play together because we naturally find a way into the music anyway. Moundabout has always been about getting out in the surroundings, hiking, swimming, chatting and experimenting with certain substances. 'An Cnoc Mór' was recorded with all those influences…just minus the substances.”
He concludes: “The vibe of 'An Cnoc Mór' for me is all about being completely present and in awe of the harsh beauty of nature. I had such poor phone and internet signal out there for a month that it allowed me to get quiet and get in the now and explore the landscape and think about it without constantly Googling shit. It was January when we were there and we got all the weather: sun, snow, hail and wind. There was no choice but just to be out in it. I love that.”
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