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[excerpt] 
by Donald Mahoney
Backstage at a Kíla gig. Eoin
Dillon is trying out a
tin whistle reel with Colm and
Rossa Ó Snodaigh. They play
synchronously, in time, note for
note. Colm Mac Con Iomaire, an
original Kíla member stepping out
from the Frames for the day to fill in
for Dee Armstrong, joins in from the
corner of the room on the violin.
Dave Logan begins using his index
fingers as drumsticks, beating them
against the table. Rónán Ó Snodaigh
begins rubbing his hands together,
making a rough, percussive sound.
You get the feeling that if Kíla landed on a desert island, they wouldn't be long sorting out some kind of symphony. Twenty years is a few lifetimes for an ordinary band, enough time for success and rows, breakups and comeback tours. Yet somehow, Kíla approach their third decade as a band at the height of their creative powers. In this way, and many others, Kíla defy almost every expectation of a modern music group. Time has only validated their non-commercial, DIY mentality, their fluid, almost communal philosophy as a musical entity, their embrace of the Irish language, their embrace of Ireland even, the backwater that nurtured them and the shamelessly capitalist state that it has morphed into. Most importantly, time has vouched for the sheer power of the music they make. This year, 2006, has been a prodigious one for Kíla. Rónán distils their current mentality into three words: "Work, work, work." They have recorded an album of slow songs called Susheen. They have recorded an album of faster songs called Cardinal Knowledge. They have released an album with Ainu indigenous musician Oki. Eoin released an album earlier in the year, The Third Twin (see page 9). Rónán has also put out a solo album (see page 13). Colm has recorded one, so has Dee. While no one would begrudge them if they rested on their laurels and toured their creative years away, surviving on a Christmas gig at Vicar Street, the summer festivals out west, and the odd gig in Spain, Kíla have spent the bulk of the year in the studio, driven by a strange sense of urgency. It's all perfectly in line with a band that never charted its own future, that never had a plan as such. The group that inherited the torch of Moving Hearts and the Bothy Band, who brought Irish music into the 21st century, have decided, consciously or unconsciously, to bring the music somewhere else entirely before they are through. "It's all happening so fast, it's hard to stop and say this is what we're at," Rónán says. "Maybe in twenty years, we can look back and say, “Yeah, it was really about that”. But as I said, we're so busy and it's all happening around us, it's hard to get a handle on it." But if Kíla are providing Irish music with a global consciousness, their beginnings are 1980's Ireland, stagnant and bleak - emigration trails blazed every which way - on the streets of Dublin, where they first began to ply their trade as buskers, where Kíla first forged their sound. "There weren't any jobs, even if you were looking, someone used to say," Rossa O'Snodaigh once said. "There was nothing."
"It used to be like the GAA," Rossa's brother Colm says. "All the top players were estate agents or accountants by day and musicians by night. We just tried to go for it. We'd seen a lot of powerful musicians do it and we knew we had to do the same." And if the stream of foreign influences make it impossible to completely tie down Kila's music, trad is certainly their template. They're continuing the work that [Sean] O'Riada began in "dignifying" Irish music. "Like the language, it was something associated with peasantry," Rossa says. "And you go back to the 13th century where the Irish language and Irish music were banned. Even up to a hundred years ago, go through the papers and you'll find an absolute dearth of any critique or emotional response to Irish music." Weaned musically in gaelscoili [Irish-speaking schools], Kíla still abide by many of the commandments laid down to them during those formative years. "The music's like a three-legged stool," Rossa says. "It's got a foot in the past, a foot in the present and a foot in future. There's always access to the source." The conversation turns to Rónán's singing style. Colm Mac Con Iomaire, mentions that it isn't that different from the vocal acrobatics of American rappers. "Rapping is a competitive art," Rossa says. "You have that in Ireland, you have that still in Wales where the poets will slag the hell out of each other and whoever ran out of words and rhymes would lose. That's been happening since the year dot. And it continues more commerciallysuccessfully in America, but it still happens in other countries in different ways." That three-legged stool might be most applicable metaphor for Kíla. They are a modern incarnation of ancient music, not only Irish, yet straddled with the commercial realities that all bands today face. They are also keenly aware of the strange possibilities of Irish music. "A lot of road had been paved for us," Colm says. "A lot of barriers had been broken down. Sure, the Chieftains could have been the first world music band when they played a concert with Chinese musicians. A lot of cows had jumped outside the cage, you could say." If anything, it baffles record store clerks. "If you're looking for our records, it depends on the store and the country, really," Rónán says. [...]
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