Damien Rice was born in born in Celbridge, County Kildare. He was originally in the band Juniper, a rock band which released the singles, “The World Is Dead” and “Weatherman”. On the eve of recording their first full album for Polygram in 1999, Rice became disenchanted with the commercial label and quit. His Juniper bandmates became Bell X1. He moved to rural Italy where he played acoustic guitar, wrote songs, and busked around Europe until he was able to form a band and get coffeeshop gigs in the Dublin area. Exploiting a lucky connection to David Arnold, his second cousin, Rice was able to record O, for which he won the Shortlist Music Prize in 2003. The other members of the band are Lisa Hannigan who sings and occasionally plays guitar and bass; cellist Vyvienne Long; percussionist Tom Osander (aka: Tomo) a member of the 90’s jam band God Street Wine; and bassist Shane Fitzsimons.

In recent years, with the increase of digital cameras and mobile phone cameras, Rice has stopped mid-song to ask the audience members to simply watch the concert rather than record it. At a gig in Toronto in 2006, he changed the lyrics of his song, “I Remember” from “I remember it well, taxied out of a storm, to watch you perform, and my ships were sailing” to “I remember it well, when we used to watch concerts, not through a camera, please turn, them off please”.

Damien Rice took many by storm with his debut album, O, where he made himself known with his honest, brutal lyrics and his heartfelt delivery. Being very vocally talented, Rice threw all of the norms out the window, going from soft, choked whimpers to shouting at the top of his lungs, which consequently makes it sound sometimes as though he can’t carry a solid note. His counter part in several songs was Lisa Hannigan, with a smooth and haunting voice, and the same songs sound empty when preformed without her presence.

The sophomore album, 9, is absolutely stunning and a worthy follow up to, O. The opening to the CD starts with “9 Crimes”, which is the solo piano song to be released on an album- and has Hannigan and Rice overlapping each other, much like in O’s “Volcano”, but with a different style and voice. The third track, my personally favorite, is “Elephant” and it reminds me a lot of “Blower’s Daughter” in the way it starts with Rice speaking half singing with but maybe a soft strum or two behind him- but about a minute and thirty seconds into the song, Rice shows me one of the reasons I adore his style. He is truly singing with all his heart, and it shows. He sings with feeling, he loves his music, he is telling us a story, and painting us a picture- the cello, violin, guitar, piano and vocals are an amazing addition. His lyrics remain raw in “9” and are full of the same heartbreak and loss- explained simply through his words. “Accidental Babies” is the second to last track, and yet another piano driven addition to this CD, and is somewhat similar to “Cheers Darling”, and by that I mean I feel the same sort of torn, ripped apart feeling when I listen to this song as when I listened to “Cheers, Darling”.

Rice experiments a little, but if you are picking up this album for a dramatic, experimental change in his performance- if you’re picking it up to be as shocked as you were when he first emerged, then you’ll be disappointed. His raw, heart wrenching, pure feeling cannot be dulled, or hidden and tucked away by the mainstream wants, needs, and desires. If you’re looking for Damien, as he is, you’ll be absolutely tickled with his “9”. It’s certainly been long overdue.

9 Crimes

Elephant

Accidental Babies

• 9 Crimes
• The Animals Are Gone
• Elephant
• Rootless Tree
• Dogs
• Coconut Skins
• Me, My Yoke & I
• Grey Room
• Accidental Babies
• Sleep Don’t Weep

I stand in front of the mirror practicing, rolling the jumbled words around in my mouth. My stomach is twisted over itself; I’ve never heard myself say these three words out loud before. I’m not even sure I’ve thought them to myself. I know what happened, I don’t need to put it explanatory format. But I want to now. For the first time I feel I would like to share this with someone. I would love to tell them but I don’t think I can. I’m worried they will see me differently. Love me less. I feel helpless. Just as I give up, shoving the thought aside for fear of disgust, judgment and my own weakness the phone rings, proving all my doubts to be wrong.

I love you.
Do you know that?
You both are so good to me.

Various moments you push back, you try to forget, but every once and a while something brings that obscured memory jaggedly back into place. It’s the ones you never expect: those you detest and you hack up into infinitesimal pieces and slip them far into the back, tucking them away into spaces you know you’ll soon be unable to recall. But can you ever really forget them? Do they ever really vanish? Sometimes you do forget, because it’s something you’ve never shared with another soul, and nobody’s there to look to you to make sure you’re all right- or give the wink of the eye to show you they remember the instant you whispered it to them. And nobody’s there to try and hurt you with your own secret shared. But it never really goes away, and it never will, and though you want to tell the world you can’t- I can’t. Because I am a coward.

Manic is a movie for those who truly care about the craft of film, about collaborative and creative skill that can come from a work of the heart, about humanity’s relief from suffering, and compassionate answers for otherwise seemingly unsolvable problems. The documentary style filming had an intense effect on the “realistic” feeling of it all. There wasn’t a soul working on this film who did not produce brilliant, genuinely communicative work that demonstrates exactly what the art of filmmaking is at its very best. And it was only the very clear and obvious display of such tight creative genius at work that kept reminding me that this was actually a film instead of real life recorded at an institution by an inmate with an ever-intrusive video camera. For all these reasons, I highly recommend this film.