Every so often, an album springs from nowhere, catching the world unawares. Word spreads like wildfire; similarly the music. Soon the labels begin to sniff around, stimulated by the word-of-mouth buzz and the potential for a re-release billed as a new discovery. It seems like we've already been down this path before. Atmospheric acousticism. Wind-swept beauty. An isolated house in the countryside. Beard. So far, so Bon Iver, who (unless you were already clued in to DeYarmond Edison and Vernon's earlier solo offerings) crashed the airwaves and internet blogs in the latter half of 2007 and caused a bit of a stir.
So, to James Vincent McMorrow and "Early In The Morning". Originally recorded over five months in a dwelling on the Irish coast, the album was self-released in February 2010, and hit number one in the Irish charts. Some members of the Irish press - in on the ground floor - called it "one of the first truly great albums of the decade". And with the re-release upon us, it's hard not to imagine many others being equally seduced by McMorrow and his deeply soulful, predominantly acoustic torch songs.
Refusing to pick up the song-writing pen until four years ago, it's the quiet reflection, mature consideration and cryptic regard that shine through in McMorrow's work. Indeed, McMorrow's interest in the world's inherent sadness comes to define "Early In The Morning" - "the characters I create in those songs [exist] in the shadows," says the artist - a place whose individuals are defined by the varying shades of darkness and sorrow that have left them scarred. These are people lost and longing, "all the furniture sold", nothing left but hate to keep them warm ("Sparrow And The Wolf"). People for whom the present holds nothing but memories of the past and thoughts of the future. "If I Had A Boat", the hauntingly splendid opener, leaves our lover directionless with only empty promises and dreams "that died long before" to keep him company. It's a spine-tingling introduction, and McMorrow's burnished voice betrays not just a sense of desire but one or two scars as well. Later on, the disturbingly captivating "Down The Burning Ropes", with its vaporous introduction, eerie instrumentation and honeyed talk of blood left behind, places the listener in a decidedly uneasy complicity with McMorrow's murderous character. The refrain of "My love she's overboard" sounds too phlegmatic, his cleaning of the knife too incriminating. The final whispered utterance of "I think she knows" - just as the pulsing beat becomes more feverish - seals his guilt like a wild-eyed character straight from a Poe short story.
"Breaking Hearts" plays it a little straighter, although the gently bobbing guitar and meandering bar-room piano gives it a more jaunty edge than it perhaps deserves. A cad witheringly dismisses his lover in the very first line, before admitting that he's been "making plans now/for far too long". But this initial callousness masks a more entrenched disgust, as he later lets slip, "the girls there look so pretty/all just empty shells to me".
The fidgety, banjo-strung "Sparrow And The Wolf" is equally unsentimental. Casting a sober eye on creation, the destruction wrought by Nature when it turns on itself- embodied in the ruthless mutilation of a lark - encapsulates the cruelty handed out as human relationships fall apart. Almost like a documentarist, McMorrow's songs are wider in scope than simple incidental introspection: although no answers are offered, his writing seeks to offer a greater understanding and no little compassion in this difficult world. From the warts-and-all depiction of kingdom animalia to the repeated references of making a home in wild isolation (the sweet West Coast idyll of "And If My Heart Should Somehow Stop", the starkly ethereal "Follow You Down To The Red Oak Tree" and the lushly symphonic gravity of "We Don't Eat"), it is clear that McMorrow has found his level of comfort, alone and far away from the modern world.
Contemplation of creation leads quite naturally into the issues of belief. "We Don't Eat", on the back of an austere piano line which swells grandly into a miniature symphony of marching drums and gentle strings, mixes the battered faith of a believer with Christian fables of fishes, nets and talk of "worn down glories". Few questions are posed, even fewer answered, but despite the acknowledgement of humanity's fatal flaws, McMorrow still finds the conviction to utter "So if I were you/I'd have a little trust".
And indeed, despite McMorrow's unflinching investigation of the universe in all its bleakness and his Keatsian autumnal melancholy, it's the positive that remains with the listener just as much as the striking, rustling metaphors and bucolic imagery. The slide guitar of penultimate track "And If My Heart Should Somehow Stop" brings to mind a lapping brook as dusk falls, whilst McMorrow's promise "I'll hang on, to the hope/that you're not too late" is about as optimistic as you will find on the album. Except, perhaps, for the final words of closer "Early In The Morning, I'll Come Calling", in which McMorrow dresses in his "finest suit/my cleanest shoes/making sure the crease is true/pressed and fresh and blue". The stage is set for our wanderer to emerge into the world; an evolution from the album's naturalistic Romanticism, it suggests that McMorrow's stream of conflicted and troubled characters may have turned a corner. And having accompanied them along the way, with their stories of life, love and loss, the listener cannot fail to feel similarly moved.
Essential tracks: "If I Had A Boat", "Down The Burning Ropes", "We Don't Eat", "And If My Heart Should Somehow Stop"
