Number 6 of 2004 — Balligomingo: Beneath the Surface

Imagine for one minute that you’re a business consultant for IBM. But you harbour a secret desire – to make music. So you ditch your job and start a journey into the unknown. That’s what Garrett Schwarz did, and a discussion with Delirium’s Kristy Thirsk led him to Vic Levak and the birth of Balligomingo.

Balligomingo reflects and documents a personal journey of self-discovery, with the songs functioning as metaphors. It’s an album you feel rather than listen to. And despite the lyrics being optimistic and inspirational, they are not essential to the appreciation of the album. In this case, the vocal delivery is essential. Each of the seven vocalists on the album were matched with the most appropriate songs.

Beneath the Surface was released in 2002 and launches with Purify, sung by Jody Quine: “I kiss my window facing south / where endless rains are splashing blue / My mouth spills an ocean of words / crashing waves of intention”. One part William Orbit, another part Enigma. We’re into the best and least clichéd of worldbeat music, setting the tone for much of the album. Jody and Vic now have a new project called Viia. Escape follows – more low-key Strange Cargo, or perhaps Torch Song, even down to the way the piano works.

It’s not until Falling, however, that Balligomingo brings something new to these familiar aural experiences. Because with Falling, we get strings – real strings – provided by the Mark Ferris Orchestra. The layered orchestral accompaniment yields an organic grounding withdrawing the track from what would otherwise be blandly synthetic. Falling is sung beautifully by Beverley Staunton, who contributes to four songs on the album. Here we get the nearest to a definitive Balligomingo ‘sound’. Lyrically it appears to be a precursor to Heat which follows later.

Sweet Allure brings acoustic guitars in with the strings and on the breathy Wild Butterfly a laid back housey piano leaps up during the chorus. These little bits of detail make a crucial difference to one’s appreciation of the album.

Beyond is more ambient and lyrically full of messages that are more at home on self-help tapes: “Go beyond the limit you place on yourself / You’ll find the power’s all yours”. Fortunately these lyrics sound better than they read. Privilege takes another, final step towards Heat, “I am the freedom that you’re fighting / I am the sweetness that you’re hiding”. Then we’re into the centrepiece of the album, namely Heat. Where before everything was restrained, Heat bursts into passion: “Now you’re moving in / Like acid on my skin / I like being burned / Your heat is what I yearn”. Kristy Thirsk’s lone appearance dominating the song, a caress of a million butterflies.

After Heat, nothing else comes close. There are some deliberately ethnic tracks during which you can turn off to. Not until the last track Lust do things get back on track as Beverley Staunton’s wavering ambient gothic vocals entice the listener back to the feelings conveyed in Heat. Ultimately a picturesque, touchy-feely album, proving that concept albums sometimes do work.

Read more about the women of Balligomingo.