THE IRISH TIMES
ROOTS/TRADITIONAL
Hector Zazou: “Lights In The Dark”In keeping with “ambient” remixes of Gregorian choirs and medieval nuns, Hector Zazou puts together this catchy, spaced-out “journey to the source of sacred Irish song”. The Passion laments, hymn-poems and old Donegal carols are eerily traditional, suspend in a mist of echoe, loops and samples; and accompanied by stone riffs on harp, oud, zither, hurdy-gurdy, ocarina (Carlos Nunez) and Mark Isham’s heavenly trumpets. The three main singers have powerful moments: Breda Mayock on Caoineadh na dTrí Muire; Katie McMahon’s Seacht Suailce na Maighdine Muire and the almost erotic wake-song Dán Na Marbh sung-whispered by Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola. It puts me in mind if Peadar Ó Riada, Iarla Ó Lionáird and even Máire Brennan: native choirs, the mix of pagan and Christian folk religion in an intimate, eccentric, electronic chill-out. Works well.
Mic Moroney