Róis: Mo Léan review – ancient keening songs filled with startling new life

Rose Connolly is Róis, a startling singer from County Fermanagh, whose first release explores the pre-Christian Irish tradition of caoineadh (keening). Here, a woman would "keen" a lamenting wail at a graveside to release the intensity of her grief and relinquish her fear of death. Largely improvised and rhythmically free, somewhat like sean-nós singing in style, the practice had almost died out by the early 20th century after discouragement by the Catholic church. Connolly fills it with new, startling life, mixing the ancient with synthesis, distortion and drones.

In the Connemara vernacular, the title means "woe is me" or even "FFS"; five long tracks are shaped around striking interludes, including the tolling bells heard before the Irish 6pm news and a darkly funny radio announcement apologising for the lack of death notices that day. Opening track What Do You Say marries mournful bass guitar with Connolly's initially tentative, chanted vocals, sung into a granulator, before they build to a climax of high-pitched feeling. Cití, a reinterpretation of a song by County Donegal's Cití ní Ghallchóir, begins with Connolly's sighs and a steady pulse before the brightness of the Taishogoto (a Japanese harp) suggests the joy around other social interactions that can happen at a wake.

Caoine, a keening song Connolly heard on local digital radio one day and felt compelled to perform that same night, is a guttural, visceral high point. At the beginning, it sounds almost animalistic before it turns into a dark, electronic pop epic; final track Feel Love is another you could imagine bleeding into a Charli xcx remix. The Lovely Appearance of Death is gentler, a Methodist hymn set against stereophonic washes of sound, Connolly's voice more natural in the mix, and no less beautiful. Mainly produced by Connolly, with John "Spud" Murphy of Lankum and Belfast producer Tailtiu on additional duties, Mo Léan heralds an arresting new talent.

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