Ordnance Survey releases album featuring Donal Lunny, Crash Ensemble & Lankum’s Cormac Mac Diarmada
Neil O’Connor has released a second collaborative album under the name Ordnance Survey today.
The record, entitled Ampere centres on the use of modular synthesizers and features contributions from Crash Ensemble, Donal Lunny (bouzouki), Cormac Mac Diarmada (Lankum – fiddle and viola), Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (vocals and flute) and David Murphy (pedal steel).
Whereas Somadrone, O’Connor’s other project largely featured texured electronic music with the artist’s own voice, Ordnance Survey has a more ambient tone – utilising a rake of real synths and real instruments to create an expansive largely instrumental mood informed by contemporary and classical music. It ebbs and flows with its running time in wonderful fashion, recalling an alternate interpretation to the serene side of Vangelis’ soundtrack to Bladerunner.
It was recorded at National Concert Hall, Dublin and the Department of Computer Science, University of Limerick between October 2018 and March 2020.
O’Connor’s first Ordnance Survey album Relative Phase featured artists Seán Mac Erlaine, Katie Ellis, John McEntire (Tortoise), and Linda Buckley.
There’s also a video for ‘Moving Statues’ from the album:
