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— The Analog Vault // Essential Listening —

Burnt out from industry pressures and the dissolution of his band Juniper, a young Damien Rice decamped to a Tuscan farm to reset. There, the Irish singer-songwriter would craft the material that would later become his magnum opus. Intent on self-producing and shunning the backing of a major label, Rice built a home studio with the help of cousin David Arnold, an acclaimed British composer, and a small loan from his dad. The intensely personal nature of the project was gorgeously reflected on his 2001 album. O remains an affecting marvel, filled with acoustic folk yarns that move from stripped-down and intimately spare to soaring orchestral swells with impassioned majesty. Rice’s tales of yearning and tragedy on tracks such as “Volcano” and “The Blower’s Daughter” will linger in the listener’s soul long after this record runs-off.  — The Analog Vault

Damien Rice's debut full-length, O, is nothing less than a work of genius, a perfect cross between Ryan Adams and David Gray and a true contender for one of the best albums of 2003. This Irish singer/songwriter works with impassioned folk songs that move from stripped-down to grandly orchestrated in a heartbeat. The production is reminiscent of Songs of Leonard Cohen - simple guitars, vocals, and then those swelling strings, all of which sound like they were recorded right in the same room. Rice is master of what critic/ranter Richard Meltzer called "the unknown tongue" - basically the musical equivalent of the "punctum" in photos, it's that thing that grabs a hold of you, the detail that makes it happen. For example, on "Delicate" the strings lift the spare folk song to the heavens at just the moment that makes the song soar - Meltzer might call it the "folk tongue" or maybe even the "epic tongue."

The magnificent, melancholy, optimistic, longing, almost magical "The Blower's Daughter" comes in immediately as the previous song, "Volcano," ends - same thing with the song that follows - which gives the album a broad, operatic quality. The gentle "Cannonball," the bright strumming and surreal feedback on "Amie," the distant piano and oceanic harmonies (not to mention drowning, backwards vocals) on the duet, "Cold Water" -- the entire record makes the empty highway less lonely, the sunshine a little warmer, and life a little more poetic. Then there's the actual opera singer doing backup vocal duties on "Eskimo" -- a song of redemption that is Syd Barrett, is Skip Spence, is Grandaddy and is Mercury Rev and everything that implies. What a metaphor for Rice's entire hopelessly beautiful record -- one long angelic hymn for an insane world with the intimacy of a friend playing guitar in your living room and the grandeur of Sigur Rós. — (via AllMusic)

High on the list of Things Music Needs No More Of, just below chill-out compilations and anything endorsed by Simon Cowell, lurk folky singer-songwriters. On the surface, this self-produced debut by Dublin's Damien Rice is standard stuff - acoustic lamentations, swirling string arrangements - but, like Kathryn Williams, Rice's personality and deft songwriting hoist him above the mass of bedsit mumblers. Cold Water's wracked vocal overeggs the tortured troubadour pudding, but at its best, O is gorgeous and understated, never too introverted to include a lovely melody. The songs' intimacy is heightened by the flat production. Canonball and Amie perfectly fix a drowsy, end-of-the-season melancholy. Whatever the actual circumstances, O sounds as if it was recorded in the sweltering early hours at the end of summer. — (via The Guardian)

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Label: Damien Rice Music, 14th Floor Records (sub label of Warner UK)
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 180g
Reissued: 2018 / Original Release: 2002
Genre: Rock, Folk
Style: Folk Rock

File under: Indie Rock
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