Dublin-based singer, actor and writer Dylan Tighe is back to take a scalpel to his very soul on a collection of songs which he says are all about embracing his own imperfections.
Named after the Japanese world view centred on the acceptance of transience, Tighe’s latest transmission from the darkness on the edge of town is a 13-song cycle, a gapless mix, which shifts through many moods - mostly dark - but ultimately ends up with hard won a sense of grace.
Which is a relief after Tighe’s searingly honest 2014’s album Record. Lyrically, he’s still blunt, funny and honest but musically, Wabi-Sabi Soul offers a broader spectrum than his previous work. Opening track Ducasse (for my grandmother) flickers with sleazy wah wah guitar, Fender Rhodes and sax and it sounds like Tighe is lamenting in the last chance saloon.
He keeps the musical temperature at a low but menacing simmer throughout with rolling, jazzy drumming, pert saxophone interjections and a jagged guitar style that owes something to Lou Reed primitive fretboard scratch.
At times, Tighe’s dense lyrical imprecations and confessions are couched in a kind of blustery and knowingly naff lounge muzak but there is real musical complexity at play here. Flowers on My Grave is simply superb and the mutoid reggae skank of Take My Pain Away reveals Tighe’s growing ease with different styles and the scope of his vision.
He also continues to make choice vocal samples and here, well-chosen snippets from Pope John Paul II, Samuel Beckett, and an acerbic Henry Miller crop up at key moments.
Dylan Tighe remains a moving target and one of the most fascinating and inventive voices in the Irish underground.
Alan Corr
Wabi-Sabi Soul is available to download from dylantighe.bandcamp.com or listen to the full album here.
