Mark Noonan reviews “Arise and Go!”

In the new issue of The Critical Flame, we have a CF first: Irish poet, critic, and musician Mark Noonan (who read at U35 this year) reviews Arise and Go! the new album of poetry and folk music by Stephen James Smith and Enda Reilly:

It is difficult to situate the album in relation to other work. It does not have many close neighbors in popular culture, or even in popular subcultures. It could have a great deal in common with rap, but doesn't. Rather, the album sounds like what it is: one person delivering a poem in speech while the other sings. There's a relationship between the two, especially in how Smith runs ahead of and behind the sung text, but Smith is freer than an emcee in his relation to the timing of the music, not needing to work primarily within the rhythm. If there is an elephant in the room, it might be William Shatner's album, Has Been. That's how far you have to go to find a popular reference point. Put another way: more is held in common with Shatner's experiment than with hip-hop. But while the rhythmic drive and integration of rap is largely missing, so is the half-ironic kitsch of Shatner. The relationship between poetry and music in Arise and Go! is both strange and familiar. Its strength is enhanced by the simplicity of the performances' production — a simplicity that's completely context-appropriate for Irish traditional music, where modesty has great currency.

Listen to a bit of the album here on YouTube: