The first CD I ever bought was by the Irish band Altan, in 1993, just before Great Big Sea started.  In those days, I was spending a lot of time at home in Barrie, where I lived at the time, playing around with music, and musical ideas, trying to figure out a way to do something more interesting with the traditional tunes I was learning. Rankin Street was done, and everyone knew it was time to take the next step.

Whenever I went into Toronto I would go down to the big Sam’s store on Yonge St. and buy a bunch of cheap stuff, and then absorb everything. When I got my first CD player, I grabbed a new disc by the band Altan. I had heard of them before, but they were not the sort of thing you were likely to hear on the radio in Barrie. Like a lot of modern Irish bands, they start where the Bothy Band left off. Essentially, they take instrumental music, and rework it in an ensemble fashion. While it is very much part of the tradition, it is heavily inspired by the pub sessions, where speed and virtuosity are valued more than anything else.

They already had a few albums out by then, and they have put out another half-dozen since. Island Angel was the last one they recorded with original flutist and band leader Frankie Kennedy, and it is still a great record.

Altan come from the Irish-speaking part of Donegal, in North-west Ireland, and their repertoire took advantage of unusual tunes and songs. What interested me then was how they had managed to infuse their music with so much energy, without using any significant percussion whatsoever, not even bodhran. A lot of the credit goes to fiddlers Mairead Ni Mhaonigh (Mary Mooney for the linguistically challenged) and Ciaran Tourish, who played so tightly they sounded like one person with four arms. Like every bouzouki player, Ciaran Curran had invented his own style, one that drove the band forward with the kind of speed I could hardly figure out. The set of reels starting with the Fermanagh Highland is a textbook on how to record and arrange tunes to make them interesting, even for people who hate instrumental music.

The song Dulaman (which is about sea-weed, apparently) was another eye-opener. Mairead’s voice floats over a simple groove of lock-stepping guitars and bouzoukis. The thing is as light as a feather, but also iron-hard in its rhythm. The bridge is the melody played by all the instruments, something both simple and complex at the same time. It feels like a lost bed track by the Moody Blues, with a mysterious vocal from Enya drifting in and out. Yet somehow, even though the lyric and the melody are essentially bright, it all sounds desperately sad. The flute takes these strange melancholy turns, and even Mairead, a singer of almost superhuman accuracy, slides in and out of the lyric like a ghost, as if it was recorded late on a misty fall afternoon after a long & tiring hospital visit.

Kennedy was dying of cancer when they recorded this album, and it is infused with the hope and potential grief that must have infected them all. He was Mairead’s husband, and the center of the band. One can only imagine what they were going through. There are a few other songs on this album, and they all feel like this. Jug of Punch, for example, is usually a raucous drinking song, yet here it sounds as melancholy and ethereal as a Lenten hymn. Even the sprightly reels take dark and unexpected turns, as if something dreadful was waiting over their shoulders.

Perhaps I am projecting all this. I do know this for sure, however - having worked on many records, the prevailing mood of the season can affect the music. I cannot hear Sea of No Cares without remembering the dreadful winter we endured while we struggled in the studio. On the other hand, Something Beautiful will always mean more to me than any other GBS music, written as it was, a defiant reaction to the deaths of our friends.

I have several other Altan records. They are all good, but none of them have this same blend of hope and despair.