(2020) Clannad - In a Lifetime


Review:
Compiled in conjunction with Clannad band members, 38 track collection ‘In a Lifetime’ includes all the hits and two new songs ‘A Celtic Dream’ and ‘Who Knows (Where the Time Goes)’ both produced by Trevor Horn.
…They started as a family group in Donegal, the “forgotten county” in the far north-west of Ireland, made up of three siblings, Moya, Ciarán and Pol Brennan, and their uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. Their first handful of albums in the 1970s are traditional Irish folk music, competent but unremarkable except for Moya Brennan’s harp parts. The version of “Dúlamán” here rambles where, for example, a later reading by veteran folk band Altan swings; their “Two Sisters” has nothing of the eerie, implacable strangeness of Pentangle’s version. Then in the early 1980s their song “Mhórag’s na horo Gheallaidh”, performed mostly a cappella but with an underwash of synthesisers, caught the ear of television producers who wanted to use it for a contemporary drama set in Belfast. The band balked at a Scottish Gaelic song being deployed in that setting, and instead recorded the aurally similar “c” for the ITV mini-series. It was an unlikely hit, becoming the first (largely) Irish-language song to scale the British charts. (Ten years later, when it featured in the film Patriot Games and in a car advertisement, it became a hit in the United States as well.) This started a profitable sideline for the band in soundtracks: for Robin of Sherwood (“Robin”, they sing with straight faces, “Robin/The hooded man!”); for the documentary series Atlantic Realm; for The Last of the Mohicans, from which “I Will Find You” won them a Grammy nomination. Their highlight was 1985’s Macalla, on which traditional song, rock instrumentation and New Age keyboard blur perfectly, particularly in Bono’s duet with Moya Brennan on “In a Lifetime”, the title track of this anthology. After that, the New Agery took over for a while. The two new songs that end this anthology, both produced by Trevor Horn, recreate their mid-’80s pomp perfectly — whistles dancing and harp shining like sunlight on the sea.





Tracklist:

CD1
1. Thíos Cois Na Trá Domh
2. An Mhaighdean Mhara
3. Eleanor Plunkett
4. Coinleach Ghlas An Fhómhair
5. Dúlamán
6. Two Sisters
7. dTigeas a Damhsa
8. The Last Rose of Summer
9. Ar a Ghabháil ‘n a ‘Chuain Damh
10. Crann Úl
11. Mheall Sí Lena Glórthaí Mé
12. Mhórag‘s Na Horo Gheallaidh
13. Theme from Harry’s Game
14. Newgrange
15. Robin (The Hooded Man)
16. Strange Land
17. Closer To Your Heart
18. In A Lifetime (with Bono)
19. Almost Seems (Too Late To Turn)
20. White Fool
21. Something To Believe In

CD 2
1. Atlantic Realm
2. Voyager
3. A Dream in the Night (The Angel & The Soldier Boy)
4. Hourglass
5. Rí Na Cruinne
6. Poison Glen
7. Na Laethe Bhí
8. I Will Find You (Theme From “The Last of the Mohicans”)
9. Croí Cróga
10. A Bridge (That Carries Us Over)
11. A Mhuirnín Ó
12. The Bridge of Tears
13. Vellum
14. Brave Enough
15. A Celtic Dream
16. Who Knows (where the time goes)


Media Report:
Genre: celtic, folk
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits