Caught in the Carousel

"Every Note is Sacred, Every Word's a Little Prayer..."
Luka Bloom Goes to Eleven

By David Porter

Luca Bloom

Released in March 2009, Eleven Songs arrives in the 20th year of Luka Bloom (the artist formerly known as Barry Moore). I first stumbled upon Luka at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, during his tour in support of The Acoustic Motorbike (1992), where he created an evening as liquid, blue and beautiful as the album itself, a lovely, atmospheric work of widescreen folk-pop that featured brilliant originals alongside covers of Elvis ("I Can't Help Falling in Love") and LL Cool J ("I Need Love").

Many of the songs on Luka's major label debut, Riverside (1990) were bristling folk-pop that wed the guitar work of early Billy Bragg (Luka disagrees with this - read on), Roddy Frame, Johnny Marr and Dave Sharp (the Alarm) to Luka's warm, haunted voice (fit for choir solos or leading a sing-along down at the pub) and propulsive fiddle accompaniment, while songs such as "Dreams in America", "Gone to Pablo" and "The Man Is Alive" were the beginning of the lushness endemic to every Luka Bloom album since, particularly The Acoustic Motorbike and including his live album, Amsterdam (2002), and Before Sleep Comes (2004), an acoustic chill album he recorded during a prolonged bout with tendonitis.

Luka Bloom

Innocence (2005), released the year Luka turned 50, is a pop pastoral that evokes Van Morrison's Astral Weeks: "Salvador" and "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are" feature bossa nova guitar and Arabic rhythms and percussion, respectively, while "June" is Luka's "Sweet Thing". With Tribe (2007), Luka expanded his sound even further, adding electric, pedal steel and Spanish guitar, a mini moog and keyboards, which he had eschewed since Salty Heaven (1998). Album centerpiece "Sound" begins in the vein of Van Morrison's "Wavelength" or Joni Mitchell's "Blue Hotel Room" and builds into one of his most melodic, most atmospheric songs, again referencing Astral Weeks; "I Am a River" is dappled with reverb, while "Homeless" is a spoken-word narrative set to jazzy percussion and electric guitar. Tribe is Luka's most experimental and effects-driven record, but its ambitions never undermine its melodies, and its detours only prove Luka's simple architecture—acoustic guitar and voice—is strong and supple enough for additions and adornments.

Eleven Songs (Bar/None, 2009) is a traditional singer-songwriter's album and a retrenchment. Co-produced, recorded and mixed with original Frames' guitarist David Odlum, who also played keyboards on Tribe, Eleven Songs is full of big, urgent melodies that derive their drama from musical simplicity and emotional directness. A string section steps into the landscape here and there, and a choir helps bring home "Don't Be Afraid of the Light That Shines Within You", but most of the songs are Luka and his guitar, augmented with light brushstrokes of percussion and piano. "See You Soon" is a perfect, elegiac pop song, while "When Your Love Comes" features clarinet and piano atop a percussive acoustic guitar—it sounds like Astral Weeks meets the Waterboys' This Is The Sea. "Everyman" reaches back to Riverside and The Acoustic Motorbike, particularly "The Man Is Alive" and "Exploring the Blue", while album opener "There Is A Time" references the Byrds' version of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and features one of Luka's most affecting vocal performances: "There is a time we must fight for our lives...there is a time, we must sit with ourselves.we give into the night..."

Luka Bloom

"These songs seemed to demand I move away from my comfort zone, and go to a large studio", Luka said, "to make a more traditional style record; great room, great musicians and singers, old microphones. We wanted to capture an honest and hopefully beautiful performance of the songs."

Luka wrote album closer "Don't Be Afraid of the Light That Shines Within You" for the yearly feast in his hometown of Kildare, Ireland, held every February 1st to welcome spring and to celebrate Brigid, the Patron Saint of Kildare and the goddess of love, poetry and justice in pre-Christian Ireland:

Luka Bloom

Every year we gather to welcome the light into our world; and to hope that more light will shine in the world; and that someday out of the darkness of war, hunger, greed, poverty, will come the light of community, sharing, justice, music, dance, peace and love. This song is my prayer for the world, and I send it out...with love and hope in my heart for our shared future. Songs can also be prayers, blessings, and they can be a spark to ignite something beautiful in anybody.

The best Luka Bloom songs are atmospheric pieces that linger at the interstice between pop song, standard and lullaby. Like the Pogues, Luka brought traditional Irish folk music into the pop milieu; he has also made this music a point of embarkation, steering the music of his native Ireland through experiments with Arabic music, bossa nova, chill, electronica and the music of the Roma. Like Roseanne Cash, Tommy Keene, the Psychedelic Furs or Sade, he has crafted a distinctive sound that heralds the arrival of one of his songs within its first few bars.

In the end, Luka's folk music is soul music—it provides comfort and hope, with many of his songs serving as salve, or prayer, or both. As he sings on "Change" from Tribe, "we all rise up, my friend/rise up slow/we all rise up, to grow..." Meet County Kildare's favorite son and the man who recorded one of the best songs ever about riding a bicycle ("The Acoustic Motorbike"), and enjoy his far-too-generous and unexpurgated responses to the cumbersome stack of Caught in the Carousel questions we sent him via email in June. These go to eleven...

Luka Bloom

Caught In The Carousel: On Turf you covered "Sunny Sailor Boy", and it shows up again on Amsterdam—both versions are lovely, and it seems as if this has become one of your signature songs. I also hear some of "This is the Sea" in "Don't Be Afraid of the Light That Shines Within You". Can you talk about Mike Scott and the Waterboys, as a fan, as a musician and as a fellow devotee of traditional Irish music?

Luka Bloom: I think it was 1990, I sang at a charity event in the Abbey theatre in Dublin. One of the other singers was Mike Scott. I loved the Waterboys through the '80s. They definitely influenced my desire to have a big acoustic sound at that time, and I felt very encouraged by them. And I love Mike's songs. That night Mike played a song he had just written. It was "Sunny Sailor Boy". I was blown away. I asked him about it, and Mike said he had no intention of recording it. The next day I got the words and chords from him and have been singing it ever since. It feels like my song now, though Mike gets all the royalties! I love to sing it.

Luka Bloom

CITC: On "Fire", you sing: "Everywhere I go/everybody's cool/coming down with gadgetry/oh the latest little tools/living in your headphones/can you hear your dreams...everybody's gone online/where nothing is real/big fucking deal..." It sounds like you're exhausted with our hyper-modern times. Was this part of the impetus to record Eleven Songs in a traditional manner? Can you compare "Fire", which is a protest against alienation and technical dependency, to a more traditional protest song like "Rainbow Warrior" from Salty Heaven, about Greenpeace and the French atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific during the 1990s? Is it harder to hit your mark when the target is more abstract or diffuse?

LB: You are asking many questions here. "Fire" is just one of eleven songs on my record, and the only angry song I've written in a long time. The frustration which gave birth to "Fire" had no bearing at all on the making of Eleven Songs—I just felt, with "Fire", that all the gadgetry of the world, which claims to bring us closer, is in fact creating ever more isolation and individualism. "Fire" is completely different from "Rainbow Warrior". One is borne out of a development in society as a whole, and the other is borne out of a specific act in a specific moment. I always hit the mark for myself, otherwise I wouldn't release the song. It is up to others to decide whether or not I hit the mark for them.

CITC: You've mentioned Allison Krauss and Robert Plant's Raising Sand as one of the albums that inspired you during the writing and recording of Eleven Songs. Can you tell us some of the other things you were listening to during this period, and some of the things you're listening to now, and give us a bit of commentary?

LB: The only influence Raising Sand had on Eleven Songs was in a conversation with my producer regarding the recording process. I loved the honesty, and rawness, of the T-Bone production, and wanted to return to something more traditional by recording live together with great guys in a great room, and (to) love playing...That was a year ago, and to be honest I don't remember what else I was listening to. I'm on tour in the US right now, traveling every day. I'm listening to music to help me come down and relax, namely Deva Premal's dakshina, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill's Lonesome Touch, and Anouar Brahem's Le Voyage de Sahar.

CITC: It seems Eleven Songs strikes a balance between upbeat, inspirational songs, such as "I'm On Your Side", "I Love the World I'm In" and "Don't Be Afraid of the Light That Shines Within You" with elegiac songs such as "There Is A Time", "I Hear Her, Like Lorelei" and "See You Soon". I want to give you a quote from a Bruce Springsteen interview in Mojo from January 2006, and I'd like you to respond to it with these particular songs from Eleven Songs in mind: "I feel about the same as I did when I was 24 years old. But part of taking your place in the world is letting that clock tick...and being willing to listen to it tick and understand that your mortal self is present and walking alongside you."

LB: When I was 24 I reckoned I'd be dead by 30. I feel absolutely nothing similar to when I was 24. I was always conscious of my mortal self, way too much so when younger. Now I am only conscious of this day. It is all that interests me. I am baffled by the juxtaposition of Bruce's quote with the songs you specifically mentioned, especially "I Hear Her, Like Lorelei". I think you are too intelligent for me—I feel like you are asking me questions while already knowing your own answers. It's interesting in a way, but basically I'm intellectually a bit stupid and am busy just being. I just write the songs. I don't think about them.

CITC: Eleven Songs is your eleventh studio album, as Luka Bloom and 21 years since the release of Luka Bloom. You've released four albums of original material in the past five years, the most fecund period of your career. How do you see your career continuing to unfold? Who are your models? James Taylor, who has been putting out quality music and touring for about 40 years? Someone like the ageless Cesaria Evora? Or maybe Paul Weller? I remember an interview he gave a few years back, when he told a journalist, "I'm just getting started!" I think this question dovetails with number five, so if you want to bundle your responses to both, please feel free.

LB: This question IS number 5...hello? All the great men and women who came before me give me hope, love, and comfort on my road. I have never met any of them, except Van, who I briefly met in Dublin years ago. Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell...So many great people who have walked the road a long time, who have achieved enormous highs and deep lows. They move and inspire me, and add to the sense of privilege I feel at having this great job. I write a song, try to record it, release it, and get to sing for people in Sydney, Hamburg, San Francisco...And yes I love Cesaria, as well as Omara Portuonda. What a world.

Luka Bloom

CITC: Some of Riverside sounds like early Billy Bragg meets Roddy Frame. Can you talk about the Eighties a bit and what was happening during that decade that galvanized you, that brought you to the first Luka Bloom records?

LB: I heard U2 in the Phoenix Park in Dublin 1984, and I knew I was done with the folk clubs. The Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Waterboys were playing great music in an otherwise bleak decade. I set about creating a sound which could be big and brash and bold enough to survive on that stage; and it did for about 10 minutes. It was great fun. I admire Billy Bragg, but nothing I've ever done sounds remotely like him.

CITC: Let's say (this is kind of hypothetical) my wife has never heard about you (please forgive her, she's Greek and you don't play bouzouki, nor did you have any top ten hits that she might find on an Eighties compilation) and I'm going to make her a compilation CD of 11 Luka Bloom songs—tell me which 11 I should put on the CD, and why.

LB: This is an unfair question. I forgive her easily for never having heard of me. She has so much great music from her country to listen to. I love the old Rembetika Greek blues stuff, heartbreaking and beautiful. George Dalaras has made some lovely acoustic recordings. Make her a compilation of all my ballads from the records and if none of them tug her heartstrings, I may have to throw in the towel.

CITC: You've covered songs from a variety of genres, including hip hop ("I Need Love"), reggae ("Natural Mystic") and American rock n'roll ("I Can't Help Falling in Love With You"), while some of your original compositions flirt with bossa nova ("Salvador"), Roma music ("Gypsy Music") and even Arabic music ("No Matter Where You Go, There You Are"), while "June", from Innocence and "Sound" from Tribe reference Astral Weeks, particularly "Cyprus Avenue" and "Sweet Thing"—"Sound" also evokes, at times, Nick Drake. Can you discuss how these influences find their way into your music, and how this might influence future projects?

LB: Man, you think about this stuff way more than I do. I hear a song. I like it. It challenges me. I learn it. Some work, some don't. I love all the music you mention, but I never really plan this as a concept. It just happens because I'm sitting in a room with a guitar in my hand...

CITC: Along with romantic ballads, brief memoirs, travelogues and character sketches, you've written a number of songs about social justice, human rights and the experience of immigrants. This list includes "Fire", "Forgiveness", "Freedom Song", "I Am Not At War", "Lebanon", "Rainbow Warrior", and "This Is Your Country". Eleven Songs arrives near the finale of the first decade of a new century and a new millennium, and the outlook isn't good: we're in the midst of the worst worldwide economic crisis since the 1930s, still torn by war and famine (according to the United Nations, one billion people will go hungry this year)...it seems we're failing to bring the promise of human evolution and the exponential improvement of technology, in all its forms, to bring about real change for the world's poor and disenfranchised. As someone who has always been paying close attention, we'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Feel free to be as candid as you wish.

LB: Look, the world has always been fucked up—we just didn't have YouTube to show us people dying in Sudan while we made dinner in Ireland. I refuse to buy into the prevailing negativity. We have so little time here, each one of us. I wake up every day, happy to be alive, and every day I ask if I can do something for one person today. The power of one is where it's at for me. I am aware of the overwhelming difficulties facing us on our earth, but I am also aware that I could be run over by a bus tomorrow. I am not a wise man, but I know enough to be able to do some good today, and that is all that interests me.

CITC: Do you miss New York? Can you talk about how the songs you've written in Ireland differ from the work you did in New York? How has your songwriting process evolved, how have your themes changed, how has the sound of your music changed? Was New York as enormous an influence on your work, at the time, as Ireland has been since you returned?

LB: Man, you've just asked 5 questions and called it number 10! As though they were just one question...I don't miss New York because I'm going back in 2 weeks. Riverside would never have happened were it not for New York. New York in late '80s changed my life. And the people who worked with me there and then, who gave me a belief in the possibilities of my work unimagined two years earlier...

Everywhere I am influences how I work, because I love being alive and mostly love wherever I am. And because I choose to be awake, I'm open to the influences physically present all around me.

Luka Bloom

CITC: Can you discuss your faith in the context of your music? In "The Shape of Love to Come" from Salty Heaven, you sing: ".the god I love needs no house of stone, nor is her image painted onto glass." Also on Salty Heaven, "Blackberry Time" includes the refrain, "everything is possible in God's time..." About seven years later, "Innocence" includes this lovely and poignant verse: "I still love the smell/the sweet smell of incense/since the prayers and bells...most of all I loved benediction/with an innocent child's conviction." If we take your lyrics from "The Shape of Love to Come" as some sort of opposition to traditional Catholicism, should we see the lyrics from "Innocence" as an acceptance of your faith, a rapprochement? A return? How does all this tie into a "life of good intentions"?

LB: While I really truly appreciate your efforts in researching my lyrics, you manage to ask 200 questions in the guise of one, which makes it really difficult for me, as I have limited time to give to this. I would need to cancel my tour to do justice to your questions, and I can't do that! Like many before me, I lost faith in the traditional church I grew up with, but I have always felt the presence of spirit in my life. I have no need to find a precise definition or understanding around this spirit—I am really content with the mystery of it all.

I totally respect the choices people make in the context of institutional religions, but to date, they play no role in my life. I have no 'opposition' to religions. I respect and accept them as part of our world. But I am very happy to be on my knees in the morning, to offer a humble prayer of intention and hope for my loved ones and myself. I pray to a being greater than me, who I choose to call god. I know I am not in charge, and I want to be better each day. And I need all the help I can get.

I am not very comfortable speaking or writing about this area, but very happy when singing. It is in the singing that the good stuff comes. Outside of the songs, I'm a weak and contentedly confused, sometimes adult human being.

Luka Bloom

DISCOGRAPHY
Luka Bloom (1988)
Riverside (1990)
The Acoustic Motorbike (1992)
Turf (1994)
Salty Heaven (1998)
Keeper of the Flame (2000)
The Barry Moore Years (2001)
Between the Mountain and the Moon (2002)
Amsterdam [live] (2003)
Before Sleep Comes (2004)
Innocence (2005)
Tribe (2007)
The Man Is Alive [DVD] (2008)
Eleven Songs (2009)

INTERNET
www.lukabloom.com

Luka Bloom

Eleven Songs is out now on Bar/None.

"Every Note is Sacred, Every Word's a Little Prayer..."Luka Bloom Goes to Eleven

"Every Note is Sacred, Every Word's a Little Prayer..."
Luka Bloom Goes to Eleven