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A DAVID KIDMAN REVIEW FOR ACOUSTIC ROTHERHAM

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TINA McKEVITT & MATT HEGARTY

DEWDROP ON THE BARLEY

Tina McKevitt & Matt Hegarty – DEWDROP ON THE BARLEY (Own Label)

Acoustic Rotherham regulars Tina and Matt have been performing as a duo since late 2007, gradually building up an appealing live set from material both traditional and contemporary which is drawn from two different strands – their Irish musical backgrounds and Tina’s own songwriting.

Tina grew up in a strong family singing tradition, and her speciality is her intimate and compelling vocal delivery, whereas Matt, a recording engineer by trade, has a wide skill-base that includes considerable instrumental prowess (guitar, bass, mandolin, bodhrán, low whistle). Their individual talents prove well matched, and there’s a sense of real complementary music-making in their work together.

While this CD (recorded in 2008) does, however, sound very different to the duo’s live act, since it is for the most part a consciously studio-produced artefact, it also manages to display their live strengths very capably.

Tina’s superb singing voice is a prominent feature, and the CD includes two unaccompanied tracks, notably the seven-minute showpiece Máirín De Barra (sung here in Brian O’Rourke’s English translation). And Tina’s own composition Camden, a bittersweet reminiscence couched in a simple pop-folk setting with a memorable melody-line, turns out to be another of the disc’s highlights. Tina also adds some instrumental colour with piano accordion and melodica from time to time.

As for Matt, his easy versatility, his adeptness in moving between different instruments and his attractive singing voice, are all qualities which are given due emphasis here without any feeling of undue overstatement. Matt also contributes an original song of his own: The Time Has Come, a gentle if mildly cautious slice of lilting electric-folk. Matt’s stock-in-trade, his gift for programming, really comes to the fore on just over half of the tracks, with percussive and other effects both imaginatively applied and not overindulged; May Morning Dew and the mantric Níl S’én Lá perhaps provide the best (and most sensitive) examples of Matt’s keen ear for instrumental timbres and textural arrangement.

And here in the studio environment, Matt also wears his wider roots background and inspirations on his sleeve by shamelessly layering reggae and dance influences, as on an extended dub treatment of Star Of The County Down and a “dance mix” of Máirín De Barra.

The latter, in being placed first in the running order, may not at first appear an obvious choice for lead track (and it does meander a touch), but the rationale becomes clearer as the disc progresses towards Tina’s unaccompanied rendition that forms its final bookend.

If I’m completely honest, I’m still not entirely convinced that the disc quite hangs together as an entity, even though I do get the feeling that a lot of thought has gone into the sequencing and planning of the disc. And the presentation of the package is a touch too basic, with no notes on the songs.

It could be the case too, that Matt’s eager embracing of his various influences lends some of the final product overmuch of an experimental air for the more traditionally-inclined folk fans or those who’ve been charmed by the duo’s live act; it doesn’t cause me a problem personally, but I think prospective purchasers need to be aware of this aspect.

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