Totally Dublin 1
familiar face from her stints on television prese
nting the music show The Heart Of Saturday Night, Loah has finally announced the arrival of her debut album Materia Medica, a project five years in the making. Drawing inspiration from the ancient pharmaceutical textbook that gives the album its name, Loah is reflecting her dual background in music and pharmacy and weaving together influences ranging from 16th-century lute music to contemporary Afrobeats and 808s, all done alongside a wide-ranging cast of collaborators from across the globe. Raised between Kildare and West Africa, her work is shaped by her love of Irish folk music and literature alongside the rhythms and guitar traditions of West Africa. A childhood spent playing fiddle and violin in Kildare continues to echo through her music, informing the album’s rich interplay between tradition and experimentation. Conceived as a hypermodern collage of sound, the absorbing record challenges traditional ideas of Irishness, femininity and genre, fusing ancient instrumentation with contemporary production to create something entirely singular. Loah channels the experience of being raised between two cultures into a deeply personal yet outward-looking debut that is rooted in history yet unmistakably modern. AH WORDS Ruby Larson PHOTOS Susannah Appleby I think it’s beautiful that you’re colliding both worlds, the pharmaceutical world and then the world of music, because you could argue both have healing properties. As someone who has a foot in both fields, what would you say about that? I love the name of the textbook, Materia Medica, I just find the Latin very beautiful. Anyone who finds themselves in that career… I would say the majority of people do so because it’s a vocation, it’s a life-long passion, it does something for the soul. And, you know we have physical remedies for our bodies and we have physiotherapists for our bones and our skin and our muscles. And we have music for our soul. It’s a way for the soul to express itself and find resonance and peace — catharsis through angry music or, you know, freedom through crazy dancing music or whatever your taste is. But there’s a type of music for everything. This album has been a labour of love for you, five years in the making. How would you compare your pre-album self to your post-album self? Well, I certainly learned many ways not to make an album. I made all the mistakes on 15