Folk music has always been a bastion for the old stories and ancient mythologies; you can hardly set foot in a folk club without being confronted by the tale of a doomed lover waiting for her sailor to return or a young buck heading off to fight Napoleon’s armies… often courtesy of a bearded chap in a cable knit sweater. But folk music, like any other genre, needs to move with the times, and Under Starling has found the perfect way of staying true to the traditions of their chosen musical landscape while helping to keep it relevant and rewarding for a whole new audience.
So, while they take as their subject the tale of a “Selkie”, a Celtic sea spirit who sheds its skin to give its magical powers to a mortal who in turn uses it to travel vast distances across the ocean to be with his beloved, there is much more at work here.
While leaning into the traditional tales of the Celtic shoreline, the song is a metaphor, but weren’t such tales always that? Here, the message is one of growth, resilience, and acceptance but also of just how much you are willing to overcome for love.
If the song’s message takes on a more modern purpose, the band are using this song to promote the work of Seal Rescue Ireland, so does the music. Here, the song is awash with shimmering electronica, chiming guitars, and deft digital ebbs and flows, and the result is simply scintillating. It’s folk, but not as we know it.
When anyone questions the ideas of the old ways being moulded and made over for the modern age, especially when you come up against those gatekeepers against music evolution and guardians of the sacred sound, just play them “Selkie,” and remind them how refreshing and how rewarding change can be.
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