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to a lot of Cranberries, appreciating Dolores O’R
iordan in a massive way. They played one of their big songs on this massive American talk show and I remember watching that back last year and thinking ‘Oh my god this is so amazing.’ Here’s this slight, but feisty, woman yelling and yodelling. There’s so much energy in it.” Before working on her debut, Orla was part of Irish Women in Harmony, a project that raised money for Safe Ireland, an organisation helping women and children in crisis. The single went to No. 1 in the charts and now Orla feels more connected to the Irish music scene than ever. “I did three weeks in a studio in Devon, in the middle of nowhere and brought the band and that was the last stage of recording. I was so hellbent on doing the summer camp style album recording to finish off. I wanted all of us to stay there in bunk beds. I wanted a big fucking whiteboard to write all the song names down and tick them off because that’s what I’ve seen on the music documentaries. I couldn’t have my mind changed. I wanted it to be a certain experience and get the band involved.” This final stage of recording had Orla as a producer on the album, a role that she didn’t see herself undertaking at the beginning of her music career: “I had no idea what I was doing with audio for so long. I did so many writing sessions when I first came to London and if you see any musicians on Instagram, you’ll see the classic picture of the back of some guy’s head with his laptop. That was the experience of production for so long, like I wasn’t allowed to be involved.” Having a hands-on approach gave Orla the control to produce an album with her fingerprints all over it. “It’s more satisfying to say I want to do this and be able to execute it. There’s a level of care that you will only give your own work.” A debut that screams made with love, Woman on The Internet lets Orla connect with all her audiences; past and present, Irish and international, online and offline. Woman on the Internet is out on August 20 via Orla’s own label New Friends. She plays the Academy on Thursday December 16. orlagartland.com 59