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Music by Mary-Lynn McEwen Mary Jane Lamond Thursday, March 16 Quincy’s The music from her album Lán Dúil flows like water, crashing against the shore of the past. Titles like "Cattle on the Hill" and "Milling Song" whisper of a more elemental era, one where people seemed to have harder lives and purer hearts. The music is an oasis of softness in a hard modern world – even the fact that singer Mary Jane Lamond chooses to wrap her gossamer voice around words of Gaelic instead of trying on English translations makes the album more soothing. But the Halifax-based singer may be more surprised than anyone to find herself at Quincy’s singing in a language her grandparents introduced to her as a very small child. "Although I recorded my first album while I was at (Saint Francis Xavier) university, I certainly never expected to make a career out of music," Lamond reports from a friend’s home in Toronto. "I was drawn into Gaelic music because of my grandparents, and I was studying Gaelic literature." That first independent album, Bho Thir Nan Craobh, featured the fiddle playing of a friend, the then-unknown Ashley MacIsaac. Later, Lamond would return the favour for MacIsaac, working on his radio hit "Sleepy Maggie." Although she didn’t plan on a career in music, Lamond found a lot of reasons to stay with it. "Once you make that first album, you’re kind of in it, and the challenge of it draws you further and further in. You think of another traditional song you want to work with, or a different arrangement, or you get a chance to work with someone with a different perspective." But there are limits to how different a perspective Lamond is willing to entertain. While Lamond used modern pop touches during the recording of her first commercial release, 1997’s Suas e!, and for Lán Dúil, the idea of further updating the Gaelic sound by singing in English is anathema to the singer. "A lot of the people who are drawn to traditional cultures, like Gaelic, are celebrating the past and those values, so the idea of putting the same thoughts into modern English takes away from the traditions." Still, aural surprises like trumpet and tabla are nestled among more expected instruments such as fiddles and bagpipes, branding this music with Lamond’s own style. She wrote a smattering of the material that appears on her latest album, but prefers to work with songs that tell tales of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, stringing together tales from the area’s rich history. Thus everyone from homesick sailors to a local poet are given voice through Lamond’s songs.

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