Tir na nÓg Black Vinyl

Tracklist:
1.⁠ ⁠Aon
2.⁠ ⁠Dó
3.⁠ ⁠Tri
4.⁠ ⁠Ceathair

‘Tir na nÓg’ frontman Harry Wilkinson says is “Maruja in its rawest essence, its purest form”. The basis of all Maruja’s music is improvised, with their recordings capturing those moments in live performance when, as drummer Jacob Hayes puts it, “things move to another level – the flow state”, which Rick Rubin swears by, and those who have seen them live will understand. Maruja talk about spirituality with an understanding that recalls the jazz greats of the past, the heightened states of being reached by John Coltrane, largely forgotten in discussion of modern music.

 To underline their unique approach to composition the final pre-debut album offering ‘Tir na nÓg’ is an entirely improvised continuous suite of music, broken down into four movements. Saxophonist Joe Carroll expands “When we improvise together, we often enter a flow state where the concept of time is warped, an hour may feel like 10 minutes for example. There is a certain thoughtlessness which becomes hypnotic, it’s in these states of mind where the majority of our music is spawned from, we take these improvisations and turn them into songs. It is important for us to show where our music stems from and this piece ‘Tír na nÓg’ is a perfect example of where we go when improvising together.”

The title ‘Tir na nÓg’ comes from Irish mythology and is another tribute to Joe’s late father who was from the West Coast (the band use Joe’s great grandfather and grandfather’s photography for EP artworks). The title means “the land of no age” and is the name of “The Celtic Otherworld”: an enchanted place from which all mysticism arises. For the band, this idea had a direct relevance to the way they create their music, capturing that sense of going through a portal to a higher plane, a world of creativity. In the middle of that mythical place, in Irish lore, is a well, which inspired the title of their last EP: artists would drink from it to give them inspiration.