Author: Breffni Banks

Even at a time when the boundaries between genres are becoming ever more blurred, Irish quintet Search Party Animal collide an uncompromising hybrid of sounds. Mixing the organic instrumentation and song structures of guitar bands with the innovative production techniques of electronic music and a background in math-rock, they’re somehow both immediately accessible and surprisingly impossible to pigeonhole.

Although they’ve released just three tracks to date – their Faction Records debut ‘Evergreen’ and the follow-ups ‘Enemies’ and ‘Get Hitched’ – they’re already making waves in all of the right ways. They built upon an early invitation to play Canadian Music Week when Radio 1’s Phil Taggart premiered ‘Evergreen’, and their undeniable potential was highlighted when they were named in 2FM’s Rising 2018 list.

Having previously played festivals including Electric Picnic and Other Voices, Search Party Animal are now preparing for the current year of festivals including Body & Soul among others. By concocting a diverse cocktail of styles, Search Party Animal have hit upon a sound that can inspire a cult-like following that will spread far beyond their origins in the Dublin suburb of Dundrum.

West Cork native Rushes is getting set to release his 2nd single ‘WAVE’ hitting streaming / download services on June 15th.

The song at first sounds upbeat and optimistic, with its combination of soulful synth, crisp vocal production and strong, dance-inducing bass. However, delve deeper and it hides dark undertones below its positive exterior. “The song is about seeing a friend going down the wrong path in life” admits Rushes, “ You see them mixing with the wrong crowd or not finding their feet but you still have hope that they’re going to get to a good place, that they can find happiness”.

With an EP on the way in October, and shows planned for later in the year, Rushestime has finally arrived.

@Rushesofficial

Barry Wilson Music is a large ensemble project led by Barry Wilson, a musician, composer and songwriter from Cork, Ireland. He has spent the last year in studio collaborating with over 22 musicians across Ireland creating, writing and arranging music for his upcoming album due out at the latter end of 2018; as well as contributing drums, percussion, piano, e-piano, vocals and lyrics to his pieces. The music is a seamless blend of Jazz, Funk, Hip Hop, Film Soundtrack and everything in between, guaranteeing a unique sonic experience that’s both original and refreshing.

Collaborations with artists on the upcoming album include the likes of Ophelia McCabe (Renowned Irish MC), Gemma Sugrue (Voiceworks Director and vocalist for Jenny Greene and the RTE Concert Orchestra), Sara Ryan (Up-and-coming solo artist recently named Folk Artist of the Year), Shaool (MC of the well-known Sligo hip hop act This Side Up) and many more. The project is in the early stage of being taken to the live stage, most recently Coughlan’s Bar and The Kino in Cork along with a show in Bagots Hutton, Dublin coming up in July.

Airplay from singles released include repeat plays from local Cork radio stations Red fm & 96 fm, as well as national radio stations such as 2FM (Dan Hegarty, The Alternative), KCLR (Roddy Cleere’s Irish Music Show) & Highland Radio (Centre Stage with Jimmy Stafford).

‘Sense Of Me’ feat. Gemma Sugrue encompasses a rich combination of music styles. Elements of jazz can be heard with its strong, blazing horn section; a sweeping, lush quartet of strings offers an orchestral, film score feel; the thumping rhythm section of Rhodes piano, bass, drums adds a rhythmic hip-hop & soul texture; a driving guitar brings with it a rock edge; all carried by the powerful voice of Gemma Sugrue.

As well as being the owner of the nationally renowned vocal tuition school Voiceworks, Gemma Sugrue was also soloist for Jenny Greene and the RTE Concert Orchestra, headlining the Marquee and Electric Picnic. All of the instrumentation was composed and arranged by leader of the project, Barry Wilson, who performed e-piano on the piece as well as recruiting the talented outfit of musicians who are part of bands such as Shookrah, Notify, Strung, the Paul Dunlea Big Band, amongst others, making it a thoroughly collaborative effort of the current Irish music scene.

Trying to make a living out of music can be a real struggle. There are many challenges to working as a musician, particularly in rural Ireland, but across the whole industry it’s getting harder to sell CDs, to get good paying gigs and even though technology has made some things easier, it also means there’s a lot more competition around, not least from Netflix and the ever increasing range of entertainment musicians must now vie with for attention.

To really make a living out of music you need to think outside the box, explore new opportunities, and do what you’ve always done – only differently and better than before.

As a musician you need to take an active role in developing an audience for your work, how you market your work and promote yourself has changed dramatically in a very short time but at the same time there are new opportunities from different groups and individuals looking to pay for the services of a musician and different means for musicians to develop their music projects.

To explore some of these issues, we are delighted to have invited a panel of professional musicians who have managed to carve out sustainable careers out of their craft to attend the Glens Centre, Manorhamilton on Friday 22^nd June from 2-5pm. The format for the day will include a panel discussion which will be open to the floor, followed by breakout sessions where you will have the opportunity to informally discuss your ongoing professional development needs with relevant panel members.

This informal and informative event will be of interest to musicians and singers from any context or genre, but traditional musicians in particular. It will be a great opportunity to meet the panel and get together with other musicians to compare notes and to share insights on ways to develop a sustainable music career in rural Ireland.

Chairing the panel will be Sandra Joyce, director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at University of Limerick. Panel members will include:-

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Jordan who is recognised as one of the finest traditional singers in Ireland today, she has been the lead vocalist for the traditional Irish music band Dervish for over two decades, and has played practically every corner of the globe to packed houses in over 40 countries. Fiddle player Dr Liz Doherty who currently holds the post of Irish Traditional Music Lecturer at the School of Creative Arts and Technology at Ulster University in Derry. Liz has performed and taught all over the world. She also runs a traditional music school Scoil Trad Bhun Cranncha and was director of the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention which took place in Ireland for the first time in 2012. Fiddle and banjo player John Carty who is one of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians having been awarded the Irish Television station, TG4’s Traditional Musician of the Year in 2003. He performs and teaches worldwide and is a tutor at the World Academy of Music and Dance. More recently John arranged the traditional music pieces in the highly acclaimed film Brooklyn. Fiddle player Ciarán O Maonaigh former recipient of TG4 Young Musician of the Year and released his first album shortly after in 2004. He is also a member of the band Fidil, and they have released three acclaimed albums. Ciarán’s music has been used in films, on television and on radio programmes including the award winning short film Noreen. He has also worked as a production co-ordinator, researcher and presenter on numerous television series’ for TG4.

Places for this exciting event will be limited so early booking is strongly recommended. To Book: https://goo.gl/Kmpyk7

Friday 22 June 2018

14.00 – 15:30 Panel Discussion

15:30 – 17:00 Break out discussions

The Glens Centre, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim

Kildare native ‘Peco’ has announced special guests ‘Bunoscionn’ and ‘Charles James Walker’ for East Side Tavern on June 28th.

The indie folk rock singer has recently set up a string of festival dates including ‘Bare’ , ‘Riverfest’ , ‘ Bloom’ ‘The Acoustic Yard’ and ‘The Secret Village’ to name a few. To coincide with this he has recently announced a Dublin date for The East Side Tavern on June 28th to play his first headline show in the capital in 2018.

After releasing his debut EP ‘And So I Arrived At The Start’ late last year he has also recently released plans of his debut album coming early 2019. Recently featuring as a finalist in two separate international song writing competitions in both the UK and US respectively.

For more info check out www.pecomusic.com and tickets can be bought from www.ticketstop.ie at €6 + booking fee

Always restless and inventive while always true to the power and glory of songwriting and melody, Conor O’Brien has made another great leap forward with Villagers’ fourth studio album, ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’, released by Domino on Friday 21^st September.

Following the exquisitely sparse, intimate aura of 2015’s ‘Darling Arithmetic’, O’Brien’s new record reconnects with the multi-faceted approach of Villagers’ 2010 album debut ‘Becoming A Jackal’ and 2013’s ‘{Awayland}’ while adding a new-found soulfulness, rhythmic nous and dazzling panoply of sonic detail, both analogue and digital, creating feverish moods while writing effortlessly accessible tunes. Balanced with subtle aspects and lyrical themes that embrace existential fears and hopes in this desperate, technologically-centred dystopian age, The Art Of Pretending To Swim is the most brilliantly realised Villagers album to date.

The album was written, produced, mixed and primarily performed by Conor O’Brien in his Dublin studio.

The video for ‘A Trick of the Light’, the first single from the album, was directed by Bob Gallagher. Conor says of the collaboration:

“Myself and Bob got together and discussed the song thematically and came to the conclusion that there was no other option but to make a short film in which we follow a disheveled shamanistic protagonist who mysteriously triggers an altered state of consciousness in everyone he meets, or at least believes that he does. We also wanted lots of dancing and to inspire a general feeling of “what the hell did I just watch?” in the viewer.”

O’Brien has a string of accolades under his belt including two Ivor Novello Awards (the most recent being 2016’s Album Award for ‘Darling Arithmetic’), two Mercury Music Prize nominations and is also a previous winner of Ireland’s Choice Music Prize.

Additionally, Villagers’ music recently featured in the high profile HBO drama ‘Big Little Lies’, Conor has collaborated with the composer Nico Muhly (that track featuring in the forthcoming Paulo Sorrentino Berlusconi biopic ‘Loro 2’) and Villagers’ Spotify session of ‘Nothing Arrived’ has hit over 100 million streams.

Tracklisting

1. Again
2. A Trick Of The Light
3. Sweet Saviour
4. Long Time Waiting
5. Fool
6. Love Came With All That It Brings
7. Real Go-Getter
8. Hold Me Down
9. Ada 

‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ is available to pre-order on Domino Mart-exclusive deluxe LP (includes 10” of a 12-minute version of ‘Ada’ and B-side ‘This Is The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ plus signed lyric booklet), Deluxe LP (includes ‘Ada’/’ This Is The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ 10”), Standard LP, CD and Digitally. Pre-order: Dom Mart | Digital

Photo by Rich Gilligan

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Summer is here, and the International Groove Machine that is Mongrel State are back to soundtrack it for us! June 22^nd sees the release of ‘Evidence Of What’, their first new music since 2016’s ‘Mestizo’.

Based loosely on the Greek legend of Cassandra, who could foretell the coming of disaster, but who was never believed, it attempts to capture the sense of growing frustration when faced with the knowledge that, no matter how compelling evidence may be, if someone is willfully refusing to see the truth then there’s very little that can be done.

The track was written by Darren in the south of Spain in early 2017 while the band were there on tour. Taking for inspiration the music of The Jim Jones Revue, its sound is a bit of a departure for the band as for the most part it eschews Claudio’s electric guitar to give space for Sebastian’s powerful drums and Guillermo’s driving piano, resulting in a raw, high energy track with a sense of drama to it.

The band have lined up a series of shows across the summer, and the dates are as follows…

Saturday 23^rd June: Evidence of What Launch Party – Bello Bar, Portobello, Dublin (Adm €10)
Saturday 7^th July: Jack’s Music Club – Dun Laoghaire (Adm €10)
Tuesday 10^th July: White Horse Sessions – Kenny’s – Lahinch, Co Clare
Monday 23^rd July: Boyle Arts Festival – Boyle, Co. Roscommon
Wednesday 1^st August: Sin E (acoustic show) – Ormond Quay, Dublin
Friday 3^rd August: Tully’s – O’Connell St. Waterford City
Sunday 5^th August: Dublin Blues, Roots & Brass Festival (venue TBC)
Friday 10^th August: The Belfast Empire – Belfast
Sunday 26^th August: Hilden Brewery Festival – Lisburn

Dublin-born singer-composer-author Kevin Nolan is known for a dark, theatrical style, and dramatic tour de force. After the success of his debut album ‘Fredrick & the Golden Dawn’, released in 2014 to European critical acclaim, Nolan returned to his studio to make his next album. However, knee-deep into the second album, he decided to pause and cast his eye back at the recordings he made before ‘Fredrick’, that he himself had not listened to since he began work on the debut in 2006.

Pre-internet self-taught and recording everything on his own, ‘Absent At The Moment When He Took Up The Most Space’ is a selection of recordings Nolan made between ‘97 and ‘05. The thirty eight songs that make up this album are taken from Nolan’s archive of over 150 recorded during that period; none of which were ever released.

“It’s been over 20 years since the earliest of these recordings. In that time, I have learnt more and more about my process and the different ways I have tried to understand it over time. I see these songs as a significant part of my growth as an artist, I simply would not be the artist I am without first being the artist I was. And so in a way, I am paying my respects to a former self. I see this time as an immensely significant part of, and integral to, any reading of my work as a whole thus far, first and foremost for myself.”

Nolan began writing and recording his songs from the age of thirteen with recording techniques of his own invention till he eventually he moved to a mini disc and then to recording on an analogue four-track at sixteen years old. Over years, he progressed from the Yamaha 4-track to a Roland 8-track. The tracks on this retrospective album range from a cappella harmonies to comical ditties, morose melodic folk meditations, rock-pop, jazz, electronica among many others; each giving an insight as to the many paths Nolan took to learn his craft. Over the years through a kind of visceral learning period of trial and error, the artist developed his own very individual understanding of both the different recording techniques and the many musical instruments he plays, relying completely on his own sensibilities.

Almost twenty years on, Nolan has decided to release these recordings in an effort to both map his musical chronology and also re-understand his work in the light of today, applying the musical wisdom he has gained since to the innocence that created it. Nolan has cited Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet when explaining his latest retrospective offering. He understands this release as a return to a past self. For him, these songs are letters from his younger self to his present self, which will most definitely inform his future understandings. For avid fans of Nolan’s work, traces of his debut album are to be found in some of these early songs.

‘HUM’ (2017) is a short documentary portrait of artist and musician Kevin Nolan by Irish-Canadian filmmaker Nathan Fagan. The film explores the relationship between Kevin’s music and his lifelong struggle with schizoaffective disorder.

Diagnosed at 19 years old with schizoaffective disorder – which has been described as the ‘unhappy marriage of bipolar and schizophrenia’ – Kevin Nolan began writing music to regain some of the freedom he’d lost due to his illness. ‘Hum’ is an intimate and music-fueled tour of Kevin’s world.

HUM has been screened nationally and internationally at film festivals, with appearances and live performances of Nolan at Au Contraire Film Festival, Montreal (CAN), Labelled in Salt Lake City (USA) and the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, CCA Glasgow (SCO), where it won the ‘Best Short Documentary Award’.

In Ireland, HUM won the ‘Best Short Documentary’, Guth Gafa International Film Festival; and was shown with the First Fortnight Festival 2018 at the Irish Film Institute, Dublin; Still Voices Short Film Festival (IE), Irish Shorts 5 – Documentary Portraits, Cork Film Festival (IE). Other Selected Screenings and Prizes: ; ‘Best Documentary Short’, Barcelona International Short Film and Video Festival (SP); FICAE International Short Film and Art Festival (SP); Ficsam Festival, Faro (PT) and Astra Film Festival (RO). It continues to make the festival round with upcoming screenings in Berlin and Belfast.

Kevin Nolan’s retrospective release ‘Absent At The Moment When He Took Up The Most Space’ will be available on all good internet stores, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc., from the 26th July 2018. On Monday 11th June 2018, HUM is broadcast on RTE2 TV, selected by the ShortScreen programme, which shows the best of Irish Short Films weekly. Watch HUM on RTE2, Monday night at 00:30 and then for a fortnight on the RTEPlayer.

www.kevinnolan.info

Having toured extensively last year on the back of critically-acclaimed releases ‘All Works Out’, ‘Elephant in the Room’ and ‘Changeling’, Irish rock band The Riptide Movement release their brand new single ‘Plastic Oceans’.

Recorded in London with producer Chris Coady (Future Islands, Slowdive) there’s a firm backbone of the kind of slow-burning, melodic indie rock that has seen the act build a substantial following in their native Ireland, racking up various #1 records and ready themselves to unleash their sound further throughout the UK and beyond. This summer sees the band continue their heavy touring schedule with a series of gigs and festival appearances in coastal areas, using the track to spread the serious environmental message that our beaches, coastlines, rivers, cities and towns need to be kept litter and plastic free if society is to help prevent our oceans from becoming even more polluted by plastic waste.

Speaking on the track, lead singer Mal Tuohy states: “We’re honoured that our music will help raise awareness of one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time. Our reliance on single use plastics is destroying our oceans, so well highlighted by David Attenborough in Blue Planet 2. As the saying goes, ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’ but if we can’t stem the tide of plastic, by 2050 there’ll be more plastic than fish in our oceans. The future is in our hands.”

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