Fionas grand ambitions for budding project

Damian McCarney

Typically, when describing local musicians’ songs, it is helpful to compare them to famous artists for the readers to get a handle on what they sound like. When it comes to Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick’s new EP ‘Kitty’s Cardgian’, comparisons prove illusive.
She smiles in recognition of the Celt’s bamboozled attempt at describing it; this isn’t the first time she’s flumoxed people.
“We’ve kind of invented our own genre,” she jokes, “purple folk!”
“People call it, kind of like, journey music - some people say it is spiritual - it takes you in,” Fiona struggles. “A little bit of modern folk?” she ventures more hopefully. “I suppose it’s poetic, lyrical, kind of... I don’t know, what do you think?”
Having wheeled around some of her favourite artists - Fairport Conventions, Joni Mitchell, Chris Smither, she gives another stab at describing her style: “A lot of people say it’s music you can feel - which sounds a little wishy-washy, but it’s something you can feel. And if that’s true then that’s lovely, because that’s what I love about the artists that I really like. There’s truth in it - it’s not somebody trying to fabricate to make a replica, to sound like this, vocally.”
Originally from Belturbet, but now living within earshot of the waves lapping on Rossnowlagh strand, Fiona will be familiar to many from her appearances on stage with local drama productions, most notably in the Gonzo’s first production of Fleadh Town and Shane Connaughton’s play The Pitch. Her biggest role was in Seamus O’Rourke’s Stalemate which enjoyed a national tour last year, and which saw the Leitrim playwright pen the part especially for Fiona.

When Fiona appears in the Celt’s office on Monday afternoon, it’s off the back of rehearsals for a kids’ drama - so she’s clearly keeping her hand in acting. “If it feels right,” she says of acting jobs, “I’ll do whatever comes my way.”

Focus

However music is her main focus: “The music is what feels right,” she insists.
Having been a singer songwriter, performing “in spurts” around Cavan, she confesses she lacked the confidence to pursue it full-time.
“I was too critical of myself - it is exposed lyrically, so it is very hard to be sure that it’s okay to put that out.”
Having tentatively sought feedback from friends whose opinion she respects, she got the courage to commit to playing her self-penned material with her band ‘The Darling Buds Of’, which features another Belturbet flower, her cousin Orla Fitzpatrick, and Donegal pianist Niamh Currid.
Fiona was rightly rewarded, with a slot at the Sea Sessions festival in Bundoran, which in turn led to more gigs, and now the release of the Kitty’s Cardgian EP.
Self funded and recorded in a manic few days at Kinlough’s Eden Vella Studios in north Leitrim, Fiona’s happy with the end result.
“We’ve had it from a seed and we’re still tinkering away at watering it,” she says.
She expects to follow this four-track CD up with a full album in early 2015.
“I’ve loads more stuff I really want to give birth to over the winter and spring, and try to find someone else to pay for,” she punctuates with a laugh. Despite it being early days, she is determined to give everything she’s got to go as far as possible.
“We’d love to go down and do Kerry and Cork and little intimate venues; we’d obviously love Other Voices, Jools Holland, all that stuff,” she says with unabashed ambition. The threepiece vow to “literally put everything” they have into achieving those goals.
“We really want to give this welly,” she adds.

Exciting
Although they found it difficult to choose which songs to commit to CD, performing live enables them to let loose in picking over their extensive catalogue of original songs.
“I get to go back to the old jazz, and do that with my hand,” she laughs, striking a Shirley Bassey pose with her fingers extended towards the ceiling. “Because I love all that. People say there is quite a bit of variety in it, which is great.”
She’s looking forward to returning to Belturbet’s Townhall and Civic Centre for a hometown concert.
“It’s exciting. We had one [show] in June and it went really well, and a lot of people who I hadn’t expected were there. I hadn’t played Belturbet in a long time and I haven’t been doing my own stuff, so you just don’t know - people are expecting to be entertained: ‘Oh well Fiona used to do the jazz, and I didn’t know that one’. But it was really lovely because people were - not shocked but - they seemed a little bit surprised. ‘Oh that’s maybe where she’s been for the last while - she’s been under a quilt under the Rossnowlagh sky’.”

Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick plays Belturbet Town Hall and Civic Centre on Saturday, November 29 to launch her debut EP ‘Kitty’s Cardigan’. Not a ticketed event. Doors at 8pm, show commences 8.30pm. €10 (includes copy of EP).