By Will McGuirk
One can only launch, lurch and leap onto the boat, push off, row, sail. Each of us on the sea, a solo journey, an odyssey, a ship of fools, a boatload of wonder. Mappe Of directs his ship towards ‘The Isle of Ailynn’, his own creation, his own destination, his own future in his hands as they carve back the water, wave after wave, song after song, he beckons and invites all as all artists do and you may require some semblance of insight on the purpose of the voyage so sail beneath the “Northern Sky” of Nick Drake, sail on “Into The Mystic” with Van Morrison, remember “All Things Are Quite Silent” so says Steeleye Span, sail through the “Holocene” with Bon Iver, or trust and travel to this place with Mappe Of’s Tom Meikle, which may only exist in the progressive-folk sounds of this record yet is as visceral as anything which proves the existence of your fingertips. It is as real as anything you may grasp and squeeze.
One can if one trusts, travel through this place, from the “Estuary” to “Thessalon” on onto “Icovellavna,” and be in awe of the grace and architecture, feel its rough hewn surface, inhale the great open spaces under great open skies which open further onto the heavens; one can drop one’s eyes and blinking in the smoke rising, see into “Volcae,” all the way to the bubbling magna which birthed all.
But this Isle is not one of fireside fables or Tolkien fantasies, nor the arrogant ponderings of a technophile in awe of the machinery. This Isle, as fantastic as it is, is still rooted in something human and familiar.
There is something concrete, something tangible, something tactile. One can, if one really works at it, create a song which reaches out and touches someone, Mappe Of may have just created something which one can reach out and touch.