Eileen Gogan‘s Another Golden Day EP takes up little more than ten minutes of your time, but the quartet of songs filling that span each possess elements of epiphany. Daily experiences – walking, swimming, cycling – present as instances of wonder, seemingly reflecting shared sensations of the last couple of years where much has, of necessity, been pared down to the simplest of pleasures.
The songs’ settings are provided by Sean O’Hagan; Gogan has spoken of the “amazing breath and ethereal life he has injected”, and they are quite beautifully complementary. Piano, percussion, and hints of other near-subliminal sonics, frame the stroll of ‘Walking Lanes’, with its profound familiarity in the brief capture of “other lives in freeze frame”, the hat for when it rains, and the set determination of “we’ll walk anyway”.
‘Wheels (Happy Cycling)’ is more breezy, full of childhood memory and discovery; “when I was five I realised how the wind could make a road rise”; with guitar, piano, and reeds. ‘Wave’ then brings that slight sense of dislocation, consequent of slipping between elements; here we have strings and electronica, repetition hinting of delay, and even erasure: “the sand that takes my footprint will bury every trace of me”.
The reflective ‘The Last Signal’ brings the golden day, meditative of time passing but speaking to an underlying gratitude; a much-desired condition currently. In its brief, quietly-spoken, celebration of life Another Golden Day serves as valuable exemplar.
Available digitally through Dimple Discs with an album release projected for later in the year. Also look for her impressive self-produced Under Morning Skies collection from 2020 – as Eileen Gogan And The Instructions – featuring contributions from O’Hagan, Cathal Coughlan, and Terry Edwards, amongst others, and from which comes ‘Malibu Stacey’.
Bucketfull Of Brains 