On a wet and windy night, the cosy downstairs venue in the lovely Duncairn Arts Centre (a listed former church building) in North Belfast, was most enticing. A welcoming space, with its sofas, rugs and soft lamp lighting, it has all the atmosphere of a house concert and tonight we were treated to an evening with Cinder Well, the performing name of Amelia Baker’s lo-fi folk project. Californian by birth and raising, Baker has spent the last few years living in County Clare, studying Irish traditional music and subsequently teaching fiddle.
She launches straight away into the opening song Two Hands, Grey Mare from her latest album, CADENCE. ‘Crick in the side of the frozen moon’ she begins and we are immediately transported to a moonlit shore in the West of Ireland and the mythical, mysterious selkie and shadowy ancient forests. Armed only with her rich mellifluous voice and her Strat Squier electric guitar, the songs are bolstered by the presence of Ruth Clinton on fiddle and barely there vocals, the band for tonight. Overgrown finds us still in the forest, where we can almost smell the dank undergrowth, such is the imagery and atmosphere created by her poetic lyricism. Switching now to steel bodied guitar, the inspiration for No Summer, the title track of her 2020 album, hardly needs explanation for this audience! Baker’s quiet presence is quite mesmerising, as she sings of forbidden love, church bells and whiskey in rain soaked Ennis, her home for several years. Explaining that she returned unexpectedly to her Californian home during the pandemic, she delivers the magnificent The Returning, an evocation of being torn between two very different worlds and times, swelling to a powerful chorus - ‘time has taken its toll on me … the returning takes its own time’.
Ruth Clinton explains why she was taking some time to get her fiddle in tune- it lives in her cold house and is not accustomed to the warmth of this building! Clinton performed here previously with her group Landless, who sing traditional songs unaccompanied, and she is one to watch. They continue with more songs from the new album, which was recorded in Venice Beach, including the trancey Crow and the distinctly Celtic flavoured and balladic A Scorched Lament. Next up is a gorgeous a capella duo version of Appalachian musician Roscoe Holcomb’s Wandering Boy, followed by the title track of the new album. Cadence positively oozes heartbreak - ‘your heart is breaking forth/and you know what the pain is for’ Baker repeats, over the droning fiddle and guitar. I Will Close in the Moonlight finds her torn between her Irish and Californian lives, indeed this inspired the very theme of the whole album, ‘but the nightingale comes back to sing/I hope to see you again’.
And then it was over, short and bittersweet. Baker tells us she has moved back to California. Well, we too ‘hope to see you again’, on our wild and windy shores.
Review and photograph by Eilís Boland