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| 1. I Trawl the Megahertz |
| 2. Esprit de Corps |
| 3. Fall from Grace |
| 4. We Were Poor |
| 5. Orchid 7 |
| 6. I'm 49 |
| 7. Sleeping Rough |
| 8. Ineffable |
| 9. ... But We're Happy |
I Trawl the Megahertz is dominated by the title track, a 22-minute symphony with a spoken narration by a female vocalist whose deadpan, disappointed manner suggests Black Box Recorder's Sarah Nixey with an American accent. It is a beautiful and extraordinarily ambitious piece--one that no other songwriter working would have contemplated, much less attempted, much less realised as spectacularly as McAloon does here. --Andrew Mueller
Review McAloon recently suffered a temporary blindness that left him house-bound. Finding solace in short wave radio transmissions he began recording and transcribing the snippets of conversation and ephemera. The result is I Trawl The Megahertz: a nine track project so personal and removed from his previous work that it's been released under his own name. Aided by arranger, David McGuinness and classical crossover ensemble Mr McFall's Chamber, Paddy has fashioned a work of troubling beauty.
The album is dominated by its opening title track: A 22-minute orchestral piece with a recurring motif, overlaid by the soft American voice of Yvonne Connors intoning poetry formed from McAloon's random dips into the ether. If on first listen it sounds pretentious, fear not. Once contextualized this becomes a deeply moving autobiographical ode to isolation, loss and heartache. It's as if McAloon's well-proven gift for aching melody and erudite love songs has, due to his enforced immobility, been subsumed into a purer and more abstract medium. The phrase that strikes home again and again is: 'I said: your Daddy loves you very much, he just doesn't want to live with us any more.' This is the sound of one man thinking about dark stuff...
The rest of I Trawl consists of instrumentals that veer from lush reiterations of the main theme ("We Were Poor" and its companion piece "...But We Were Happy"), jazzy vamps ("Fall From Grace") and almost Zappaesque technical exercises ("Esprit De Corps"). Yet you are never far from reminders of the sadness and regret that suffuses the mind of the composer. "I'm 49" contains samples from McAloon's radio explorations with the underlying theme of separation and loneliness ('What's wrong? I'm 49 and I'm divorced') while the only vocal track, "Sleeping Rough" ruminates on the ageing process ("I shall grow a long silver beard...").
Such a deeply personal project will probably never recapture those people that bought Steve Mcqueen the first time around. But for all of us at a particular stage in life this is a poignant reminder of the healing power of music. One can only hope that it worked for McAloon himself. Gorgeous. --Chris Jones
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
The project began when McAloon – forced by illness induced insomnia – found himself drawn into the twilight world of late night phone-in shows. His writers ear began picking out stories and patterns of lost love and loneliness. Interpolating snippets of dialogue, he has woven a loosely-themed concept album around the tales of broken hearts that drift through the airwaves.
The remaining tracks form a loose suite, meditating on every aspect of loss and poverty (it's not as dour as that might sound) indeed, 'Esprit de Corps' is positively perky, a feast of thrilling pizzicato strings and sun-bright trumpet. The split bookends of 'We Were Poor…But We Were Happy' have a nostalgic pull, not dissimilar to the soundtracks for such 1960s classics like 'Cathy, Come Home'.
'I'm 49' features real quotes from phone-in shows and is simply heartbreaking without ever being prurient. McAloon brilliantly uses the shifting whistles of radio interference to create unearthly howls in the background.
... Read more ›While his eyesight was temporarily impaired he would listen to the radio, moving the dial catching fragments of conversation. The key lead piece of the album records a number of these fragements placing them into a spoken word text next to each other seeming to possess some inner and unspoken meaning. The fourth track uses actual samples in a similar way to more direct impact and only on one track does he actually sing briefly.
The music combines the structured ambience of Brian Eno (such as Music For Airports) with restrained strings, vibes and hushed trumpet reminding of The Blue Nile, Gavin Bryars 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet' with it's similar overlayed text, Gil Evans arrangements with Miles Davis or modern classical composer Marshall Ingram with his 'Gradual Requiem'. The album works in the fore ground for intense listening or as an ambient backdrop, each listen offering another take on the music.
This is a highly individual and fascinating album that each listener will find a personal and treasured take on. It is very different from the artist's more song based work and deserves a wide audience. With the right support could have a similar impact to albums like Tubular Bells. Like David Holmes soundtrack work could result for the artist and with use in a sympathetic media context the work could resonate through the wider public consciousness.
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