Clannad
Dulaman

The reactionary wave does not easily come to a halt, especially for those of us who made or lived through '68. Today, as mature men and women that we have become, we play the part of those who long ago laid down the cultural weapons of revolution and our dreams, leaving them in attics, basements, dusty shelves, abandoned to oblivion due to distrust or, worse yet, sold for a few pennies to greedy occasional junk dealers. Yes, we have sold our dreams, the abstract ideal, for the concrete interest due to our unrelenting advancing age. We will all more or less meet the same end and adapt to new trends, betray ourselves, our past, to appear more modern to our children, abandoning everything that hasn’t succeeded us, like a useless burden and emerging from a filthy chrysalis to collide with a "new world," in the illusory attempt that the new and current contain disruptive force compared to the old and outdated past, in terms of cultural economy, of course. That's what I did many years ago, among other things, giving away a batch of records with horribly signed covers (that's how we preserved them when we lent them to each other) at the dawn of the new CD era, thinking I had done the right thing, and with them, a part of my old history went away as well.

Among those well-worn and consumed records (later all repurchased) was "Dulaman," the stunning third work of my beloved Clannad from 1976 (ed. Ger. Intercord), because it was with them that I spent most of the '70s and I am proud of that. I don’t know how it happened, but a small miracle occurred a couple of years ago; believe it or not, rummaging through the street markets in my area, to my immense astonishment, I came across my old record; the signature on the back cover left no doubt, so I brought home the friend I had vilely sold. Today, as I write this review, it is playing in the background, and with great pleasure, I point it out to you all.

I believe that Clannad doesn't need much introduction, and since there isn’t a single review on DeBaser (how many gaps are there?) of this legendary and fantastic Irish group, it is a great honor for me to pave the way; adjectives are not enough to define such an extraordinary band. Comprising the incredibly talented Maire Brennan (elder sister of Enya, voice, harp and keyboards) along with brothers Pol and Ciaran Brennan and brothers Noel and Padraig Duggan (voice, tin whistle, bass, guitar/guitar, mandolin, harmonica) all in the family, all in a "clan," indeed. Clannad could be considered, perhaps today, the most important Irish Celtic folk group, "Dulaman" is a purely acoustic work, sung in the magical and melodious Gaelic language, ten tracks from the best Celtic folk tradition, with stern Gothic-Norman influences in some parts and mystical naturalistic ballads, with bucolic turns. Music highly aestheticized with distinct spiritual elevation, in which the title track "Dulaman" for voice, chorus, and harp immediately suggests the great charm that permeates the record, but the great masterpiece is the sublime "Siuil a Run", I have never heard a sweeter and more melancholic piece in my life, I have no comparable benchmarks to describe the immense sweetness of this Maire Brennan song, a true transposition of the Celtic soul.

I do not want to go further to describe the "indescribable," what lies nestling in the notes that are the absolute heritage of the spirit, which will especially employ your ears and mind, if you allow it. As far as I am concerned, I was fortunate enough to attend one of the three Italian concerts of the incredibly fit Clannad this year and I must say that no other musical experience as touching as this has been able to enrich my now lazy soul.

p.s. Sorry for the lack of accents on the vowel titles in the Gaelic language.