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SOUND MODEST MOD Oisin Mod is one of the more eni
gmatic artists emerging on the independent Irish scene. And he’s bashful about his achievements too. “As you can probably tell, I’m not too used to people wanting to speak to me about my songs,” laughs Oisin Mod at the conclusion of our conversation around his forthcoming debut, yet the preceding hour wouldn’t have given me that impression at all. Mod is thoughtful – almost seemingly to the point of caution – in his responses throughout our discussion, taking time to formulate his ideas with generous gaps before musing a wryly candid and often deceptively eloquent answer that is always worth the wait. It’s a quality shared in the understated songwriting across the Galway native’s solo debut Honeycomb; a masterfully intimate recording that reveals hidden depths to itself over ten hypnotic tracks. Mod effectively combines minimalist shoegaze-infused textures with hushed vocals and conversational tales of melancholic reflection. Honeycomb feels like the sound of an artist truly realising their identity, with a fully formed sound and style that is rare on a debut recording. The truth is that the twenty-five year-old Mod has been searching for his own musical purpose from a young age. A student of guitar and violin from the age of eight, Mod played in bands around Galway throughout his teens and into his twenties, but perhaps never felt as comfortable being part of the band as he does with his newfound independence. “I was probably trying to write things that were a little more instant in my previous band work – things with obvious hooks. Which was very much my jam for a while! I don’t want to say I grew out of it, because I very much enjoy that type of music, but it wasn’t coming that naturally to me. So I was maybe doing myself a disservice by trying to scrape it out rather than following what my intuition was telling me,” he says. Asked about the relative freedom of writing for himself as opposed to for a group, he expands: “I don’t know if there’s more freedom in it, but there’s definitely a lot more of an inclination towards going with what comes intuitively rather than worrying about what the band thinks. You don’t have to worry about what three or four or however many other people think before you can figure it out yourself. [Honeycomb] was definitely written in a way that felt more natural and comfortable, and once I realised that, it became easier. It showed me a room I hadn’t seen before. It seemed obvious enough after recognising that.” Mod’s deference in brushing aside this significant revelation in his writing abilities is something I come to recognise quickly as a classic feature of his genuine modesty and warm, humble nature. It’s a trait which rears its head again in comical fashion when he refuses to buy comparisons that have arisen in his whispered vocal style to the late Elliott Smith. As well as finding his voice as a songwriter throughout the writing and recording process for Honeycomb, the subtly majestic vocal performance of Mod within this collection is perhaps the catalyst and foundation for the bewitching spell that these tracks cast upon each listen, but the man himself is typically ready to shoot down that particular theory or any associated praise. He explains, “I think maybe I was tailoring the songs to what is easy to sing, and kind of going with what comes naturally to my voice. If you can’t really sing, you don’t have to try to. I know Bill’s [RyderJones, who produced Honeycomb] vocals are a bit more talky – the same goes for Leonard Cohen, John Cale, Lou Reed and those guys. But I don’t know 42