Daily Dose: Seán Mac Erlaine, “En Fetelle Mai”
photo by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh Music Features Seán Mac Erlaine
Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
The combination of inventive woodwind player Seán Mac Erlaine and a pair of Norwegian artistic luminaries—Jan Bang and Eivind Aarset—is a musical dream come true. The three fuse together beautifully, collectively reaching for sounds that are haunting, luminous and multi-layered. The signifiers suggest jazz, ambient, new age or dream pop but any of those genre categories seem limited to the expanse and depth of what they accomplish together on the album Music For Empty Ears (out on May 25th via Ergodos Records).
This track, “En Fetelle Mai,” for example, lingers in the air like a fog, clouding the field of vision and changing the colors of the landscape around it. An electronic wash that feels almost physical. And out of this haze comes the glassine vocals of Sadhbh Ní Dhálaigh, hypnotizing and elevating every emotion that this song evokes. By the time Aarset’s guitar and a Penguin Cafe Orchestra-like electronic piano part comes into view, you’re lost and the song has you in its grip. Whether you choose to wriggle out or give into it is up to you.