Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9 1/2/10
Silver and Wood might be Jacquelyn Hynes’ debut solo album but there is no denying just how tremendous it is and like a rare bird should be left to roam the Earth sending its goodwill throughout.
The sound of folk but with the twist and feel of being somewhere else in time, of being displaced and in the hands of a woman adept at causing music to sound both sentimental, dramatic and pleasingly cynical is perhaps the finest example you will be ever to say you have listened to for many years. It is female heroism personified but with the tragedy of having met the unfortunate victim and mourning her loss.
Shakespeare’s Ophelia may be waiting in the wings to drown her sorrows and capture the image of unrequited answers to her music but Jacquelyn Hynes is no tragic heroine of pre-Renaissance Britain, she is more of a musical interpretation and amalgam of Anne Boleyn, Anne Askew and French Poet Nicole Estienne all rolled into a heroic minstrel, at home with the flute and tempting the stirring imagination with her beguiling piano and seamless marriage of music and words.
None so more is this in evidence as on the track Greensleeves. One of the most enduring pieces of music from the 16th Century given that spark of poetry in amongst the dancing notes and pirouetting style associated, rightly or wrongly with King Henry’s Court. Through the cavorting nature and allusions of courtly love, Ms. Hynes captures the woman’s voice in a symbolic answer of refusal and quiet outrage at the thought. It is characteristic of strong women in that period and one in which the even the refusal to play the expected game is one in which any listener can fall in love with.
Other great tracks on the album include The Ashplant/ Red Haired Lass, the playful The Cuckoo, the image ridden She Moved Through The Fair and Sliabh Russell.
This heroic minstrel, the entertainer in the midst and shrouded gown makes this type of music, not only wonderfully accessible but user friendly, the underlying strength of will wrapped up in clever composition and kept safe against those who would suggest that the sounds framed by J.Eoin, Eoin O’Neill, Quentin Cooper, Yvonne Casey, Stuart Hall, Luis Landa-Shreitt, Eoin Quiery, Allison Sleator and Gerry Diver are too obscure for 21st Century tastes.
Jacquelyn Hynes is an eye-opening musician, a delight for all the senses but most of all for the ears in which every fibre of her being is used in making sure that what you hear, you fall hopelessly in admiration with. Silver and Wood is a stunning piece of work worthy of the best quality.
Ian D. Hall