The Dun Ringles

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Dun Ringles Not Prog?

Dun Ringill/Dun Ringle/The Dun Ringles The Four Chessmen (Tape Records) ($$$$$)

Connoisseurs of the previous work of Knock-based “Progressive AGOFR” tyrannosaurs The Dun Ringles will be aware of the inherent tension between their roots in the Avante-Gaelic Obscurist Folk Rock (AGOFR) movement and their desire to emulate the excesses of their 70s Progressive Rock and AOR heroes. The fundamental tenets of AGOFR demand musical ineptitude and poor production values, as well as a blinkered view of popular music centred entirely on the Outer Hebrides. With their use of proper instruments, their insistence on playing in tune and their refusal to record on broken 70s mono cassette players, the DRs have always trodden a fine line with the purists in the Continuity wing of the AGOFR movement. Only their adherence to ridiculous parochial subject matter has saved them from expulsion by firebrands such as The Guireans, Cyclefoot and Zing Pop.

What has never been questioned before is the band’s commitment to their Prog side. Any previous Dun Ringles (or Dun Ringill) magnum opus could be relied upon to contain plenty of “conceptual” thematic nonsense, extravagant instrumental virtuosity and a level of Steinmanesque overproduction verging on the operatic. Industry experts were therefore shocked when the advance publicity for their 7th album appeared recently, hot on the heels of 2002’s epic “Giraffic Park”. What self-respecting titans of the 70s would take less than 5 years, three wives each and half a dozen trips to the Bahamas to develop an album? You wouldn’t catch Boston knocking another record out as quick as this. And them ELP coves would be turning in their graves if they knew how fast “The Four Chessmen” had been put together (and if they were dead).

The speed of this production had most insiders convinced that the band must be undergoing a fundamental change of direction. Was “The Four Chessmen” going to be the Dun Ringles’ punk album? An experiment in lo-fi? A “contractual obligations” album designed to free them from the clutches of the Tape Records corporation and its shadowy Chicago-based CEO mogul CJ Mitchell (87)? Apparently not. There may be some new influences at work, but all the ingredients of a classic Dun Ringles meisterwerk are here in tractorloads: bombastic production, Vikings, gratuitous complexity, multi-tracked guitar solos, unnecessary tempo changes and the obligatory song that begins with the protagonist loitering in the Castle Grounds for no obviously legitimate reason (why is it that he’s always there whenever a psychotic monster giraffe or a pair of live wooden chesspieces or a rubber man appears?).

The secret to the album’s rapid release is apparent in the opening seconds of Track 1, It’s mandatory for any self respecting 70s Prog titans to employ an orchestra to give an album the required gravitas. This can be complicated, resulting in months of wasted studio time and delayed release dates. Wattie and Jason cut out the middleman and saved money (without losing pretentiousness points) by taping some “orchestra tuning up” noises off Radio 3 and sticking them on at the start of the CD. Apparently they claim that this is an arrhythmic serialist tone poem that the band have constructed from “found sounds” in homage to the three key figures of 20th century avante garde music – Schoenberg, Stockhausen and Duncan “Major” Morison. Having met their prog rock artifartiness quota up front, the band are free to launch straight into “Fish and Education”, their Tull-like tribute to Stornoway circa 1900 and its two main exports at the time. The subsequent sad decline of our once-great educating industry is unintentionally reflected in the lyric book intro (“…His book described Stornoway as been world renowned…” ) and the lyrics themselves (“…and some for railway station..”). And presumably only one and not “many” can “lead the world in steel”? Fleek’s sake! I’ve a good mind to write to thon cove in the Gazette that does “A Word In Your Ear”. He could do an article charting the decline in Nicolson pupils’ English grammar from 1900 to its nadir in 1981, the year that a practically illiterate Wattie was released into the community. What amadan was running the place then anyway?

Co dhiubh, “Das Boot” is next, a quiet introspective number about the life of a boot from its conception in Domhlann’s shop to its ultimate demise in the Bayhead River. (De mu dheidhinn Allt nam Brog?). A lovely tune, this one, in which a recurring pattern in the lyrics becomes apparent; as in “Fish and Education”, Wattie sets himself the formidable task of perpetuating the first rhyme of the first verse through the entire song (leather/weather/impress her(?)/feathers etc etc). In this case the wheels are just about about to come off Wattie’s careering lyrical bogie, when along comes the ingenious “and my tongue won’t even blether” to save the day. Jason inserts the mandatory massive multi-tracked guitar solo towards the end but it fits nicely with the rest of the song (not that that would make any difference). The famous Dun Ringle accent slip phenomenon (see their Midges of Rock 2003 performance of “A Tale of Two Tractors) can be observed at its finest on “Das Boot”; The song begins in natural Leodhasach style but by verse 3 we’re “acrrross the moorrrrland heatherrrrr”, somewhere between Inverness, Ireland and the West Country in the mythical land where all folk singers seem to come from. Too much fleekeen Ian Anderson!

Back up-tempo for the next track, with Wattie not sounding like Ian Anderson at all on the rock ‘n’ road thrash of “At the Wheel”. This meditation on the business of driving a truck very fast to catch the Ullapool ferry ends up like Radio Birdman versus the Flamin’ Groovies with Lemmy guesting on vocals and Brian May (again - sorry, Jason) playing lead. Perfect, in fact, were it not for its failure to rhyme “Ossian” with “Rushin’”. Oh well, maybe on the live version…

The tempo drops again with the obligatory non-Avante Gaelicness (there’s always one!) of “In The Night”, for which Wattie freely admits the words were made up at the last minute. Ironically this is the one that’ll probably end up getting covered by Celine Dion and going to number one for 6 months, seeing it’s a nice ballad and it’s not about Leodhasach stuff that the rest of the world doesn’t understand. The Dun Ringles will make their fortune from it. All their other work will be forgotten and they will be remembered only for this song. “Gee, you’re the ‘In the Night’ guys!”, people will say 50 years from now whenever they come out of their fortified Beverly Hills retirement home to buy their Gazette.

Next up is “The Mane Man”, the band’s less than subtle ploy to ingratiate themselves with top SY rock biz figure Jori “The Scene” Kim by writing a song about him. Or at least about his legendary hairstyle. It seems to have worked, as the “Four Chessmen” was promptly named Isles FM CD of the week despite its less than complimentary exhortations to the topiary-coiffed Chicago exile to “get a strim”. If the DRs get included on the next Honcho Recordings compilation, it’s doubtful that this will be the number selected…

“Sea Chain” follows, a worthy recycling of the theme from the band’s 1994 Viking-era historical concept album “Flang Your Doodle”, which also nicks the rhythm from “Fish and Education” in bits as well. Sea Chain’s chorus is highly effective in conveying the labour of the oppressed worker, striving to shift a literal or metaphorical burden. In this respect it is reminiscent of traditional Gaelic worksongs such as “Iomar Thusa Choinnich Chridhe”, of Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” or perhaps Joy Division’s “The Only Mistake”. Or maybe that dodgy Spandau Ballet song about working till you’re musclebound. Wattie as Tony Hadley?

“Gallows Hill Rooks (On The Lookout for Crooks)” provides a change of pace, dropping down to waltz time and pushing Wattie’s trademark “use one rhyme for the whole thing” technique well beyond its limits in a chorus which attempts to rhyme every line with “rookery”. The song explores the old legend (made up by Wattie) that the rooks in the Castle Grounds provide Stornoway’s original CCTV system, patrolling the town at twilight to put a stop to any bad business that happens to be going on. The obvious flaw in the feathered figilantes’ technique is that they all go to sleep long before closing time, which is when all the fleekin’ “crookery” normally occurs. Queen-y guitars from Jason and a Darts/Rocky Sharpe and the Replays-style acappella doo-wop finish complete this number.

“Frost” is next – inspired by the ..err… “frosty” sound that that Jason discovered on his guitar effects box. According to reports in “Tolsta Guitar” magazine, Jason demanded that a song be constructed that would enable him to use this particular noise a lot, and this tale about staying in a tent at Kinlochresort in February (why!?!) was written to fit the bill. Kinloch Resort is evidently a very popular spot with paranormal entities such as UFOs, apparitions of sunken U-boats and, presumably, Mac an t-Shronaich. It is said that you’ve got more chance of a good night’s sleep in the Narrows at closing time on a Friday than you have at Kinlochresort, so busy is it with Martians, drowned Nazis and ghostly quasi-mythical serial killers going about their business. Something about the chorus here is reminiscent of The Soft Boys or of Robyn Hitchcock’s solo material – can’t quite put my finger on it – maybe the vocals or maybe the nicely dodgy rhymes…

Speaking of the Soft Boys, “Carved in Wood” lifts their “statues coming alive” theme from “Underwater Moonlight”, mixes it with a Chris-Isaak vs Mark Knopfler git-tar hook and transposes the action to the Castle Grounds. The King and Queen chess pieces at the old sawmill are mysteriously brought to life and head down town (To the Royal? Or the Crown?).

“Wee Womble Getting Scared by the Balantrushal” sounds like the title of a pipe tune, so it was a relief when it proved to be a hefty slab of funky metal a la Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic”. “The Balantrushal” (not to be confused with thon place after Barvas but before Shader, which has two “l”s) is a legendary wheelie bin monster who lives in Valtos, Uig. Deamhnaidh as ever in setting himself a lyrical challenge, Wattie attempts to find enough things that rhyme with Balantrushal (in English) to fill up two verses and a chorus, with chaotic results. ”Whooshal”? O, mo chreachd!

 “Break Away”, slows it down again, a bluesy number that makes a perceptive point about the inbuilt schismaticism(?) that afflicts so many institutions in Lewis. In this case it’s inspired by the carvings at the sawmill again – the band imagine a chess set fracturing as all the pieces leave to form their own groups. Ironically this could refer to the Sawmill Band/Woodland Ceilidh Band/etc etc accordion enthusiasts’ split, seeing it’s based on chess pieces and there are chess pieces at the sawmill. Or maybe, seeing it’s got a Bishop, it’s about the Church of England congregation that split between St Peter’s and Teampull Eoropaidh (proving that the tendency to splinter isn’t just confined to the natives). Or perhaps the Bishop is more broadly representative of religion in general and could be taken as a symbol of the Free Church/Continuing split… co aig a tha fios? Anyway, the end of the song fades into a noisy live jam with all 4 “Ringles” playing in the same place at the same time, something that doesn’t happen often nowadays. Rawk n Roll, as they used to say.

The big closer is “Fir Chlis”, the sort of number that most Prog bands would have made a whole album out of. Luckily the DR’s couldn’t be bothered, so it remains a “mini prog rock epic” in Readers’ Digest condensed form. Evidently not a tribute to legendary Gaelic actorrrr Sim MacCoinnich’s theatre company of the same name, “Fir Chlis” is instead a conceptual piece based on the romanticised notion that the Northern Lights were supposed to be some men poncing about. The song is based around Robin’s haunting piano part, which sounds a bit like Michael Nyman’s theme from “The Piano” (which in turn was stolen from Murdo Morrison of Habost’s “An Ciaora”, so if Robin did nick it he was only reclaiming it). Meanwhile Wattie is possessed again by the spirit of Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson and the accent slip kicks in with a vengeance, with “luuh-yitt” being cast on the edge of “nuu-yitt” like nobody’s business. The linguistic coup de grace is saved for the chorus however, when after a last blast of frenzied metallic fretwork from Jason, the “danzzzerrrrz” announce that they are the “Furrr Clis.” Obh obh! Somebody get them townies a Gaelic coach. It worked for Al*th M*cC*rm*ck, (well, OK, sort of).

Linguistic quibbling and pedantry aside, though, it’s a fine and genuinely epic piece of work, as is the whole album. Musically and production-wise there’s no questioning the fact that the DRs have come a long way over the last couple of albums. You’d be hard pushed to tell that this was recorded on a home PC and not in a real studio. Multi-instrumentalist, producer and apparent Anita Dobson obsessive Jason has pulled it all together admirably from his Grimersta control room, with excellent tunes and keyboard hooks being supplied from afar by Robin. And Jon managed to do something as well. Meanwhile lyricist Wattie seems to be shaping up to become Stornoway’s answer to Ray Davies; To me the choice of subject and the observational approach in the best DRs lyrics are actually more reminiscent of late 60s Kinks at their best than of the immediately obvious 70s influences, even if the rhymes are a bit suspect. So get down to Sound Tracks and get your copy of this genuinely unique record now. There’s nothing else like it in the world and never will be - who else is ever going to mix grandiose self-indulgent 70s pomp-rock with lyrics about old boots from Domhlann’s? Who else would want to even if it occurred to them? For this reason alone, you know you must buy it. Charles Shaader Murray, Newvalley Musical Express Winner of The CJ Mitchell award for Most Favourable Review of a Dun Ringles Album (Sponsored by Tape Records) 2004