Playing the IMRO Other Room at Other Voices 2022

Welcome to the world of Kynsy: a colourful, weird place of harsh edges and soft storytelling, where unwavering authenticity reigns king and the building blocks are constantly shapeshifting around you. It is the world constructed by 24-year-old Ciara Lindsey, who is still constructing herself, throwing love songs and confrontational battlecries at the wall to see what sticks.

It began with the rising Dubliner’s debut EP Things That Don’t Exist released last year, a few months after she featured in the NME 100 who praised the EP as, “a masterclass of channeling angst into disarming indie for a new generation.”  Her music caught the attention of The Irish Times, naming her one of 50 people to watch in 2022; the Quietus who included the debut EP as the best new music of that month; glowing reviews from the likes of DIY, DORK and Clash, who called Kynsy’s first release “raw and breathtaking”.  BBC Radio 1 proved to be equally supportive with Jack Saunders, Annie Mac and Gemma Bradley all championing her and she was chosen as a BBC Introducing artist for Radio 1’s Big Weekend.  But that four-track release still wasn’t enough – Kynsy is an endlessly prolific songwriter. Her mind has been thrumming with tunes for the last five years, and at this point she’s just itching to get them out.

Freedom has always been the most important thing, and with second EP – Something To Do With Love – you sense Kynsy fully embracing the confidence that comes with her ever-growing knowledge as a songwriter, producer and performer, presenting a boisterous collection of tracks without being constrained by genre, format, theme, or, well, anyone but herself. She’s indebted to the artists she grew up on – David Bowie’s chameleonic glamour and the Beatles’ peerless crowd pleasing, as much as The Strokes’ seductive stubbornness and the way nobody writes lyrics quite like David Byrne. But still, The new songs build on the swaggering wit of the first EP, the observational frustration with modern living now shapeshifting into something broader, grander, even stronger.

Live she has performed at Pitchfork Festivals London and Paris, The Great Escape, Neighbourhood Weekender, Truck Festival, Tramlines, Y Not Festival, Live at Leeds in The Park, Forbidden Fruit, Electric Picnic and Other Voices.

Bricknasty

Rapidly becoming one of the most talked about live acts in Ireland, Bricknasty emerged from Ballymun at the beginning of 2020 as a lockdown studio project that has developed into a band taking in members from across the country – singer and guitarist Fatboy, drummer Korey Thomas and bassist Dara Abdurahman. Featured in District Magazine’s Future of Irish music 2021 feature and described by BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders as his favourite type of jazz mixed with every other genre under the sun, they draw influence from Neo-Soul while putting their boisterous and eclectic nature on full display. From infectious energy and soulful chords to its soft, woozy vocals, the band combine R&B, hip-hop and an anarchic musical approach that stems from singer Fatboy’s roots in the Balbutcher Lane flats and exposure to a range of cultures, from traditional ballads to hip-hop, rave and 90s garage.

Pa Sheehy

It wasn’t just Covid-19 and lockdown, which made 2020 a year that Pa Sheehy is unlikely to forget. After a decade fronting the Irish chart-conquering Walking On Cars, he decided last July that it was time to leave the group. “When lockdown hit, the level of peace that came over me was something I’d never felt before. I slowed down and stopped thinking of the next song and the next gig for the first time in ten years. It was a chance to re-evaluate everything. Was I happy with where I was? I tried to convince myself I was and that I should be grateful, but it became apparent after some time that I wasn’t happy and it was time to make a big decision.” “There was no bust up or other big drama; it has just run it’s course” he explains. “Following all those years of being in a band, I wanted to be able to totally do my own thing, which has been very liberating. Walking On Cars was an amazing period in all our lives. The people of Dingle were with us from our first gig in a local bar, two albums later and we had toured all across the world, player to 14,000 people in Dublin’s 3Arena; and performed before Kendrick Lamar at Electric Picnic to 35,000 people singing back every word. So all in all, we did good.” Following the success of his debut EP ’The Art Of Disappearing’ a Top 10 and No.1 independent release in Ireland along with a Sell Out run of Headline shows in Ireland. After a string of festival shows this Summer and having just completed a Sold Out European tour, Pa Sheehy has just announced a row of intimate ‘Unplugged’ shows in Ireland this December.