Anthony Toner’s twelfth studio album 'Six Inches Of Water' is a love letter to his adopted homeland of East Belfast. It includes eight original new songs – each a classic in its own right – plus two very special covers.
‘Six Inches Of Water’ is social history in song. In true Anthony Toner style, each offering is a short story, a vignette, a glimpse into his characters’ lives. It’s as if he weaves the craft of short story writing into lyric and song leaving us to imagine further each character’s rise and fall. Ordinary people doing ordinary things but, somehow, Toner captures the essence of East Belfast throughout the last century.
You can take a city, half it, quarter it, but whatever and wherever – North, South, East or West – people are people. It’s the same the world over. Human nature is what it is regardless of where its moral compass points. I am once more reminded of Wordsworth’s lyrical ballads when I listen to Anthony Toner.
Anthony was transplanted some years ago from the north coast to East Belfast and has steeped his heart and soul there since so it’s no surprise that this album owes its existence to a song that formed when he was invited by Brigid O’Neill to be part of an awards evening for the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society.
He composed a song inspired by Templemore Baths – one of the city’s precious gems. And so, the title track and opening song (co-written with O’Neill) is ‘Six Inches Of Water’. It tells the story of a young chap finishing work at the shipyard on a Friday evening, joining the queue at Templemore for the weekly wash. Everyone got six inches of water regardless.
From the opening bars, you know you’re in Tonerland. It’s just got that vibe, that beat, that soul.
The song – ‘Six Inches Of Water’ – took on a life of its own as spirited songs often do, and hence, Eastside Partnership invited Toner to pen a complete collection inspired by the East of the City. What emerged is pure gold with a suite of ten short stories masquerading in song to tell the tales of a lovelorn taxi driver, Mrs. Boyd and the Belfast Blitz, to the darkly humorous Workers Council strike of 1974. Who else could rhyme soap with hope, or Stormont too with Doctor Who?
There are tributes to the beauty of the Connswater Greenway, to one of East Belfast’s best-loved artists – playwright and actor Sam McCready – and a cover of Van Morrison’s classic ‘Orangefield’.
Linking landscape to love, places to people, ‘Six Inches Of Water’ captures all the senses. The gift of an artist such as Anthony Toner is to really make these stories live and breathe. Somehow, that is what he’s achieved. The characters are afforded dignity, beauty, and truth in their simplicity.
Just when you think it can’t get any better along comes the closing track, and it will literally stop you in your tracks. Stop what you’re doing. Sit down. Fold your hands on your lap and listen to the Arco String Quartet arranged by Anthony Toner play ‘Nearer My God To Thee’, which of course was played on deck by the musicians as the Titanic sank.
‘Six Inches Of Water’ starts with a local shipyard lad cleaning up and loops to the sinking of the same shipyard’s finest work of art. Who else could create a loop like that but Anthony Toner, the artist?
Recorded in Coleraine by long-time collaborator Clive Culbertson, Toner’s band on this record came together for the first time featuring Culbertson on bass, John McCullough on keyboards, Matt Weir on drums, Neil Martin on cello with daughter Maebh on viola.
‘Six Inches of Water’ is released on 5th August 2021, the opening night of Eastside Arts Festival. The launch event at Willowfield Church on the Woodstock Road is sold out but there are plans for further dates.
Visit anthonytoner.net for details.