Albums with an eccentric richness of ideas like his self-titled debut (2012) or the larger-than-life ‘Broken Sky’ (2017) have made O’Donovan one of the most sought-after musicians in Canada. Comparisons range from Tom Waits to Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson, but of course don’t really do the creative maverick and his unmistakably rough timbre any justice.
Within the earthy, baroque psychedelia of his 3rd album, Amok, Declan O’Donovan meditates on losing track of time. Amok takes sonic cues from the places it was born in, geographically and mentally. It bends, sometimes, toward grandeur, like the vast and mountainous terrain surrounding O’Donovan’s hometown of Whitehorse, where most of the songs were written. It trades in a lushness of sound that recalls the all-encompassing greenery of Vancouver Island, where it was recorded. And it reels with a similar terror and revelatory spirit that descended upon O’Donovan during a mushroom trip in the rainforest on that same west coast before he began writing these songs. Amok frequently pushes back, too, against 21st-century isolation, investigating its effects and building something to snuff them out. Against the heaviness, O’Donovan arms himself with a healthy dose of irreverence, never taking himself too seriously.
We all lose track of time, get lost in time, struggle with our places in the world. Amok recognizes the miraculousness and mundanity of existence. As O’Donovan asserts: it’s all as pedestrian as it is profound.
