Michael J Sheehy – Six Songs About Love & the Lack Thereof (Dimple Discs) – We are doing that catch up thing before the year does really end again, clearing the decks once more as it were, better late than never ever or something like that. This mini album came out back in October and yeah, we should have covered it back then but hey, only a couple of tracks ever made it to the Bandcamp page and hey again, the record label didn’t seem that bothered about sending us a review copy even though we’ve probably raved and drooled way too much over pretty much ever record Michael J has release in his last thirty years or so (and yes, you’re right, we did released one or two of them ourselves back in his Dream City Film Club/Saint Silas Intercession days). We’ve said it all before (maybe the label thought there was nothing left for us to say?) and when Michael J Sheehy’s current band Miraculous Mule are in full flow there are very few live bands who can live with them.
Why Miraculous Mule aren’t household names and all the radio and telly is beyond me, a well actually no it isn’t, I’ve seen way too much and know far too well how the London-based music industry works, I’m still wearing my cynical smile t-shirt. Okay, so maybe, as Mr. Sheehy will admit himself, he has pissed away a couple of careers without need much help from anyone else but really he should by now be big news, he’s made countless brilliant records, he writes beautiful songs and with that butter wouldn’t melt voice he can get away with just about anything. Michael J Sheehy should be all over Radio bloody Six, he should be a regular fixture on Joolz bloody Holland’s (admitedly awful) TV show, he should be on big stages, people should have intimate knowledge of his songs, he really shouldn’t be playing these pieces of treasure in small back rooms of pubs to the handful of people who know, he songs and his voice really are something infuriatingly special. I do always find myself saying these things and thinking I am saying them to someone who has never heard of Michael J Sheehy.
Just listen to the opening piece here, just stand quietly in your own space and listen to the heartfelt beauty as well as the aching hurt of Don’t Put Yourself Beyond the Reach of Love. Just listen to the beautiful inperfection of it…
There’s six songs here on this latest release, five of them originals; six songs that are the quieter side on Michael, not that he makes lots of noise. Miraculous Mule can rock though, they can kick it, I have mentioned Motorhead in Mule reviews more than once. This is the quite side, not the fragile side, these aren’t fragile songs, wll maybe they are, these are strong beautiful songs though (and if they are your first experience then do go explore his back catalogue, as fine as this album is, it only tells you part of it). No, these aren’t fragile songs, these are things of beauty, and yes, Michael does make me write things off the cuff without really thinking about it, it is about the emotion, the purity, the soul, the comfort that sometime can’t be found.
That first song…
Six Songs About Love & the Lack Thereof kicks off with Don’t Put Yourself Beyond the Reach of Love, an absolutely beautiful piece of quietness that Sheehy describes as “a plea to a friend to accept help. A couple of years ago, I attended the funeral of a friend I hadn’t seen in two decades. He died alone, in his flat at just fifty years old and it was some weeks before his body was discovered. It seems he had isolated himself from his closest friends and then his family. He was a kind and beautiful soul but deeply troubled, this song is for him and the many others who suffer alone” and really, without wanting to sound over the top about it all, it really is something so achingly beautiful, it is almost painful, it drips with the hurt of it all, it really is, even by Michael’s standards something very very special…
Baby, Baby, Baby is a bittersweet tale of heartbreak and the scars that remain, it is maybe the most surprising of the six songs on here, does it feel a tiny bit like a quiet Buddy Holly song (and yes, I know that’s a big thing to say), and yes it is him tearing his own world apart, or admitting he did. Who Weeps for the Angel? quietly mournfully reflects and asks us to withhold our judgement of those less fortunate than ourselves and to recognise that we are all one slip away from the gutter.
Beautiful Waste is Michael J Sheehy’s take on Australian legends The Triffids’ early single, a song I’m not familiar with, Sheehy says of the song “it perfectly encapsulates the thrill and the heartache of romantic love. I hope I’ve done it justice”, I’m pretty sure he has, there are some beautiful details in there.
Between the Mirror and the Graveyard has a powerful touch of gospel flavoured Country to it, a song that we’re told was inspired by a line from Clarice Lispector’s beautiful novelNear to the Wild Heart and the breakdown of a friendship due to an online spat. Sheehy says “We seem to be falling into binary arguments and polarised tribes while we ignore all nuance and forget about kindness. When I was young and stupid with the remnants of my catholic upbringing still clinging to me, I held onto some bigoted ideas of morality. On the occasion that I may have expressed these ideas, no-one shouted me down or ridiculed me or made me feel stupid. I was lucky to have friends who gently set me straight and didn’t turn their backs on me because I held a different opinion. I believe this is still possible despite the algorithm telling us otherwise.”
This is an incredibly honest set of songs, reflective rather than the sometimes frustrated anger of Miraculous Mule and okay yes, I have to criticise something here, not sure about those last few seconds of Between the Mirror… Nothing is ever perfect.
Sheehy describes the closing piece of six here, And the World Will Keep on Burning, simply as “A love song for my wife. She is my solid ground in an increasingly shaky world and I’m lucky to have her.”
And without wanting to be a little too over the top about it all, we’re lucky to have the music of Michael J Sheehy, and yes it is okay to lose yourself in all this, don’t let it pass you by, we almost did. Six rather beautiful songs that deserve to be heard.
Bandcamp / Michael’s own Bandcamp page
Previously…
ORGAN THING: The first rule of Miraculous Mule is you don’t talk about Miraculous Mule…
THE ORGAN 