As Frank Kearns, Francis Xavier was the founder and guitarist with legendary rock band Cactus World News, whose debut album sold over a quarter of a million copies worldwide and whose music was featured on TV dramas such as ‘Miami Vice’. He began his musical career as the lead guitarist with seminal Dublin North side band, ‘FRANKIE CORPSE AND THE UNDERTAKERS’, formed in 1976 with fellow Mount Temple pupil Neil McCormack, author of ‘I was Bono’s Doppelganger’. After Frankie Corpse and the Undertakers were ahem, laid to rest in 1977, Kearns formed THE FAST (world’s first Ramones tribute band). Then came THE MYSTERMEN (1979), BLUE RUSSIA (1980), CACTUS WORLD NEWS (1984) and SAND PUZZLE (1994)
He has composed music for film, most recently, ‘The Laws of Attraction’. He has also recorded and produced and played guitar with a variety of artists, including screen star Colin Farrell. That’s Kearns playing raunchy in-your-face guitar on Farrell’s version of ‘I Fought the Law’, a song used in the acclaimed Irish film ‘Intermission’.
As a musician and composer, FX has been called ‘ a force of nature’ and a ‘sonic alchemist’ and his guitar playing has been singled out for praise across the world. Amongst other tributes, FX’s fretwork has received plaudits for its’ uncanny ability to transform and alter moods, and pull ‘emotional magic out of the ether’. Sometimes unnerving, often possessed of an uncompromising power in its’ unwavering quest for melody, FX’s guitar is always inventive and distinctive, at times oddly beautiful.
‘Walking the Waves’, FX’s new instrumental album, builds upon his reputation for seducing, cajoling and sometimes overwhelming the listener into an alternative state of mind. He has corralled all his musical experience and passion to produce a stunning new album, a remarkable coming-into-focus of a musician’s particular vision.
FX is a composer who is always seeking and travelling, experimenting and investigating, uncovering and taking risks to get beneath the surface of an individual experience. Now with the release of ‘Walking the Waves’, the journey continues.
From FRANCIS XAVIER to FRANK KEARNS to FRANKIE CORPSE to FRANK KEARNS again and back to FRANCIS XAVIER.
WALKING THE WAVES FRANCIS XAVIER (RED CORAL RECORDS)
WHAT’S THE STORY?
Whereas most ambient CDs are laid-back and even comatose, operating primarily as soothing background music, ‘Walking the Waves’, the new album by composer and guitarist Francis Xavier takes the opposite route. The music seeks to grab the listener’s attention and lead them on an emotional, spiritual and healing journey across the ocean and to exotic, mysterious islands. By turns soothing and lively, ‘Walking the Waves’ is always engaging. Francis Xavier’s intent is disarmingly uncomplicated, ‘I want to provoke an emotional response’.
OK, SO WHAT’S THE MUSIC LIKE?
The tunes vary from shimmering evocations of the otherness of island such as the title track and “Spirit of Vailima/Tusitala’ to the haunting oceanic meditations ‘Ghostwalk’ and ‘Dream of the Pearlfisher’ with their chiming guitars and pulsating bass patterns. Eoin McEvoy, Joan Whyte, Theresa O’ Mahony and newcomer Jenna Whelan supply lilting, sometimes ghostly backing vocals while the opening title track features a Samoan choir to breathtaking effect. Celebrated flautist Brain Dunning adds texture and style to ‘Sahara Achara’ while pianist Patrick Firzgerald adds luster to several tracks, including the memorable ‘No Distance Too Great’.
The overall mood is of engaged contemplation. There is no distance from the music, no airy-fairy synth squeaking and gargling and no sense of inaccessibility. The music takes listeners on a sea voyage and gently deposits them upon the grainy beaches of a desert island. For such a gentle, unhurried, captivating and fluid album, the tunes are surprisingly robust. Electric guitars soar, dip and splash, imbuing reflective or contemplative instrumentals with bite and exhilaration – hence the ‘punk ambient’ tag, though the music is closer in spirit and substance to Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ than The Ramones. However, the true inspirations were the sounds, sights, atmosphere and lapping waters of Samoa. Imagine chilled out Surfer Dude Jack Johnson’s horizontal beach anthems mixed with some of the most haunting and lyrical aspects of Thomas Newman’s soundtrack for ‘American Beauty’ and Luc Besson’s exuberant score for ‘The Big Blue’, and you have got some idea of the appeal. It is music that seeks to take away or soothe some of the pressures of modern life as well as to offer a different kind of healing experience to the listener.
THE VOYAGE
‘Walking the Waves’ has been in ‘gestation’ for a few years, and its’ completion marks the end of a significant voyage for the composer who is by his own admission, an inveterate traveler and explorer. Francis Xavier called upon a variety of musicians, including flautist Brain Dunning and bassist Garvan Gallagher as well as former Cactus band-mates Eoin McEvoy (backing vocals) and Wayne Sheehy (percussion).
‘Wayne, Garvan and myself set up facing each other and performed with real heart to achieve the performances contained in the CD. We found that first takes were often the best. The longer we spent ‘perfecting’ the approach, the more the music came out devoid of any emotion.
The experience of making ‘Walking the Waves’ was as much visual as musical, a bit like attempting to create an aural painting. ‘I like having a Canvas on which to paint my aspirations and emotions. This is hard to do in a big noisy rock band with a singer crooning. Here, the guitar playing is doing the narrative, painting the canvas.’ ‘Walking the Waves’ may well be a personal soundtrack to an ocean adventure, but it is also possibly the only ambient CD where danceability mixes with the chill-out factor. The music connects with the listener in an intimate, deeply personal way. It’s the sort of music you could put on anytime, anywhere and (hopefully) discover something new with each listen.
As Francis Xavier puts it, ‘I hope the CD “gets you" rather than the other way around. The reaction I’ve been getting so far has been very positive. People describe the music `as “emotional”, and that’s exactly what I hoped they’d say’.
INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCES:
As the title suggests, the music is concerned with the sea and waves and islands and in particular, the oceanic obsessions of the composer whose infatuation with the sea is rooted in his childhood on the North side of Dublin.
“I have been attracted to oceanic matters since I can remember. It’s not conscious, it just happens whenever I write. Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and ‘Island Nights’ definitely triggered a sense of possibility. But then anything exotic was appealing to a boy looking out of cold murky schoolroom 6D in Scoil Mhuire, Marino, trying to dodge a flying Duster. It’s a long way from flying dusters to flying fish but I like the fact that the seas are governed by tides and so are we’.
FXK describes the album as ‘a bit personal’ as well as ‘a bit punk’. He agrees that you’d be unlikely to hear it in elevators or waiting rooms. ‘It’s not your usual "ambient" CD. It is free of bleeps and computer-generated codology. However it is recorded on both analog and digital.’
Walking the Waves is about a journey, ostensibly an outward trip to exotic islands such as Savaii ,Samoa where he spent several weeks last year, but also an inner voyage into healing, acceptance and joy. ‘I am influenced by the great voyagers and writers that transport me from North Dublin to places exotic and even disturbing’. Antoine Saint -Exupery and Robert Louis Stevenson are major influences along with Gauguin’s masterpiece, "Who are we what are we where are we going". ‘I was amazed at the way it almost seemed that the painting was growing as I watched. Its’ spirit was well and truly alive. I love the way he painted up a mysterious scene for our imagination. The unsaid stuff is best and most powerful. It’s the space between the bars that keeps the person captive. Robert Flaherty’s "Man of Arran" and "Tabu" are magic films that reveal and explore the otherness of life that we don’t often see. In a TV world of strobe effect editing, it is so satisfying to watch. That’s the kind of mood I’m going for with this CD. I hope people will use the music as a vehicle for their emotions and find healing within, as I have in creating it.’
