Bring Your Own Hammer - My Grief on the Sea
Bring Your Own Hammer (BYOH), in collaboration with Peckham-based label Dimple Discs, has announced the forthcoming vinyl release of the ambitious Irish music compilation 'My Grief on the Sea'. Bringing some of Ireland’s and Britain’s finest songwriters together with historians to create new and original song cycles based on historical sources and to interpret song material rooted in the history of 19th-century Ireland and of the Irish Diaspora.
Not a band, nor a group, an ensemble or even a collective, Bring Your Own Hammer is a faction but, unlike 19th century Irish factions (who met, armed with sticks and two-handed wattles in fairs and markets), BYOH is armed with voices and instruments and dedicated, as no faction before, to the re-interpretation of historical material in song form.
‘My Grief On The Sea’ is dedicated to Cathal Coughlan, one of Ireland’s most revered singer-songwriters and frontman of acclaimed 80s-90s groups Microdisney and Fatima Mansions). The first vinyl LP to be released through BYOH, this album is brimming with contributions from superb artists, including Linda Buckley, Cathal Coughlan, Adrian Crowley, Eileen Gogan, Carol Keogh, Michelle O’Rourke, Brigid Mae Power, Michael J Sheehy, Mike Smalle and Jah Wobble.
This is a collection of songs about the sea, maritime voyages, and migration to and from Ireland during the 1800s. These songs criss-cross the Atlantic, following the remaining threads of lives shaped, in one way or another, by the sea. In 'Golden Streets, Bitter Tears' by Adrian Crowley with Brigid Mae Power, for instance, lines written in the letters of migrants to North America are matched with beautiful melodies.
You will hear the echoes of words from a bog in Co. Roscommon, sung in grief for a lost lover, who has departed overseas in the decades after the Famine (on the beautiful title track, Michelle O’Rourke’s ‘My Grief on the Sea’). Imagine yourself with Carol Keogh on the quays of New Ross in 1849, as Biddy and Catherine Keogh depart for New York (on the stunning ‘A Pair of Packed Valises (before the Dunbrody), 1849’) or picture yourself crossing the Atlantic in 1881 on a ship with Mary Connaughty (on the melancholy and haunting ‘Old Oak Road’ by Mike Smalle with Cathal Coughlan and Jah Wobble).
Join Cathal Coughlan and Linda Buckley on the roads of Co. Carlow, during the 1832 cholera epidemic, as a man called Crowley returns to Ireland after thirty years at sea (on the complex and poignant ‘The Man with Open Arms’). Sail the high seas with Eileen Gogan and Neil Farrell disguised as a cabin boy (on the sad and beautiful ‘Female Cabin Boy’) or stand with Tony Higgins and Agu on the quays of Dublin as the multitudes depart during the Famine (on the vibrant yet melancholy ‘Embarkation’).
Mike Smalle and Wally Nkikita trace Joseph Keys’ journey to Ireland from the time he leaves his life of enslavement in Virginia to his departure, from Baltimore, on board a ship across the Atlantic in early 1844 (on the melodious and tragic ‘Over the Ghosts’). Contemplate the rumble and power of the sea with Mike Smalle (on the sparkling track, ‘The Oscillating Sea’). Finally, imagine Marie and her lover swimming off the coast of Ireland as the effects of the Famine drive people from the land and towards the sea (on the starkly beautiful ‘The Weight of Water’ by Michael J. Sheehy).
This album is curated by Dr. Richard Mc Mahon, lecturer in History at MIC, Limerick, who explores forms of invented history that expose the villainy of the Irish race, both on the island and overseas, with support from Dr. Niall Whelehan, senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, who has written widely on the history of modern Ireland and the Irish diaspora with a focus on the 19th century.
As of June 6, 'My Grief on the Sea' will be released on limited edition vinyl with a lovely gatefold sleeve and 12-page booklet with credits and mini-essays on these songs. It will be available via Bandcamp, where the digital and CD versions can already be had.
