Lemonade & Buns/Tog E Go Bog E
Kila
Green Linnet records
REVIEW BY BILL NEVINS
Kila play Irish music the likes of which you've never heard. Forget your notions about tiddly diddly dee and them boring auld laments and dirges. This lot of young Irelanders toss in traditional instruments like fiddle, uileann pipes, bodhran and whistles beside electric guitars, sax and drums. But this is not just rocking up the old tunes, as The Pogues and many fine bands have done.
Kila — consisting of the brothers Ronan, Rossa and Colm O Snodaigh, Brian and Lance Hogan, Eoin Dillon and Dee Armstrong — compose and play completely new melodies, mixed up with those dusted-off jigs and airs, and grafted to the most original lyrics — largely sung in Irish Gaelic — on topics the Clancy Brothers never touched.
Kila sing about sex in rowdy present-day Ireland, and as experienced by glad old Irish bards with names like Turlough. They also sing about things like the war in Bosnia ("Ce Tu Fein"), getting drunk on mouthwash ("The Liostirin Waltz") and the Irish-born woman who invented the banana-split("Rachel's Reel"). There's even a frantic instrumental ode to a railway train kidnapped in its entirety by the IRA, way back in the bad old days, ("Where Did You Hide That Train, Joe?"). That one's set beside a sweet tale of who, or what, you may see in your mind's eye just before drifting off to sleep ("Tip Toe"), chemically induced or not, as the case may be.
Funny, creative and playful music, with enough of an edge to keep it from ever being merely cute. Kila — their name means whatever you would like it to mean, really — have something to say to the rest of us out here in the big world, after all. New words and catchy new music from an ancient country just starting to come into its own.
And the thing about it is, all this is very, very danceable. Bright and wild. You don't sit back and nod to Kila's sound. No Enya new-age dreaming here. With their riddims, wit and drive, you gotta be up on your feet and out on the floor. Truly an Irish contribution to hip hop culcha. Kila is indicative of what happens when you give a smart Third World country a sharp injection of freedom, cash and hope. "Celtic Tiger" indeed — up and bloody bouncing!
The Irish Gaelic language Kila proudly prefers — though lovely — can be a problem for ignorant English ears. "Tog E Go Bog E" is such a fine refrain that it's great to learn that it means "Take It Easy, Now". Of course, "The Double Knuckle Shuffle" and "The Compledgegationist" either defy or really don't need translation. But a full set of English lyrics should be provided with these CDs. As it is, the booklets with their clever artwork and summaries of the songs' meanings are helpful, while full translations are to be found on the band's web site.
A crazed, sharp taste of the true, pure stuff from the New Ireland. All the best!