Thursday, February 14, 2008

Fionn Regan- The End of History


Fionn’s 2006 debut The End of History for me was one of the most simple and astoundingly gorgeous releases of that year. For a musician to strip away the security blanket of loop pedals, drums, bass, post production etc. can be a daunting and ruthless ordeal. Songs of acoustic nature almost always serve as a sobering rendition that challenges the core structure and integrity of a song. To rely on one instrument to create unique song after unique song doesn’t necessarily show outstanding musicianship rather it is more telling of ones vision as an artist and lyricist. Mind you, this is not a ‘perfect’ album in the sense that every song is a single or that there is one narrative created, formed and finalised in to one grand vision. It is an album of hopes and near misses, occasionally verbosity and humbled voices but most importantly when the elements are aligned it is an album of poetic brilliance.

Thankfully Fionn is a great guitarist. His deceptively simple finger plucking grows on you with every listen. It lays down the path for Fionn’s hypnotised meditations on past events, objects people and emotions. As a lyricist he is extremely unique, seemingly unrelated phrases are whittled and moulded into beautiful melodies until they attain an ethereal association. They are poetic mixture of traditional heartbroken prose and everyday normalities such as:

I read to you on Saturdays
Museum has closed down
Sell all your things
At the end of the drive

Be good or be gone

For me the highlights of the album are when Fionn is at his most simple and direct. Put a Penny in the Slot is written like a stream on conscious thought sung over some of his most simple guitar work. There is no hint of rhyme, instead the words compliment each other on a more enunciated level. Others that follow in a similar vein are Snowy Atlas Mountains and Abacus. On the strength of this debut Fionn’s follow up is already highly anticipated even considering that there has been no word of any in the near future.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/usau9u

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