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SOUND EXONERATION ØXN is the new experimental doo
m folk project born out of lockdown and the first release on Claddagh Records in 18 years. In the depths of lockdown – January 6th, 2021, to be precise – an event occurred that united people online in Ireland and further afield. In the eerie setting of a Martello Tower in Dublin, and not a governmental building in the United States, two of Ireland’s most enthralling and inspiring artists, Katie Kim and Radie Peat performed a special “audio-visual collaborative streaming event”, as it was billed. The event, named Nollaig na mBan after the date it shared, featured striking imagery by artist Vicky Langan which heightened the haunting atmosphere of Kim and Peat’s performance, which featured additional musical contributions from Eleanor Myler and John ‘Spud’ Murphy. Over the course of the stream, audiences shared on social media their amazement and appreciation of the extraordinary set which included foreboding traditional folk songs such as The Trees They Do Grow High and Cruel Mother, the latter dating back to the mid-18th century. Alongside those historical tunes, were contemporary works such as The Wife of Michael Cleary from Maija Sofia’s 2019 debut album Bath Time and Farmer in the City from Scott Walker’s Tilt. It was something of a seminal moment at a time when the world felt claustrophobic and, frankly, bleak. The electricity between Peat, Kim, Myler and Murphy throughout the Nollaig na mBan stream surged 42 through laptop and televisions screens; the power of their chemistry as a band cast a spell on audiences that night, one that was not easily shaken. “The feedback for that stream was huge,” recalls Eleanor Myler, “We didn’t expect the reaction we got, at all!” The positivity surrounding the stream, and the work that had been put into it from all involved, had a lasting impact not only on those who watched Nollaig na mBan, but on the four musicians. A little over two years after that event, in May of this year, word began to spread of a new band called ØXN, a green-tinged press shot showed Radie Peat, Katie Kim, Eleanor Myler and John ‘Spud’ Murphy making it the group official. A month later, ØXN released their first single, Love Henry, and announced their debut album CYRM, which would follow in October to be released via Claddagh Records. This would be the first new signing to the legendary label in eighteen years. To say that CYRM [pron. sy-rum] has been one of the most eagerly anticipated albums of the year is an understatement. Given how online ØXN’s existence has been to its fanbase up to this point, it feels fitting to speak to three quarters (Peat is absent for our chat) of the band via Zoom on an autumn afternoon. Sitting in a row in Dublin’s Guerrilla Studios, where Spud records and mixes work for an impressive array of Irish acts such as Lankum (of which Peat is a member), Ye Vagabonds, Hilary Woods as well as Katie Kim’s solo material and Percolator, the band he and Myler are in. We begin by talking about Nollaig na mBan, and its origins which sparked from an initial collaboration between Kim and Peat which had been suggested to Kim by a few people and a connection was made. “Radie was calling over to my house a couple of times a week and we’d go to my bedroom and plug things in and run through loads of different songs. Whatever we used for [Nollaig na mBan] were the songs we’d played during that period. But we didn’t know if it would work or not. I certainly didn’t know because Radie’s voice is so powerful and I’ve got a completely different timbre. But it did work and we were delighted with how things were going and we did two gigs and then lockdown happened!” During that time, Myler had been playing drums with Peat for her solo material and Kim made her way back to Ireland following a period of living in New York. The three came together in Guerrilla Studios to explore and develop their sound, and gain a bandmate. “Radie was really excited about working with synthesizers because she hadn’t really got the chance to do that with her other projects, or even when she was doing solo stuff. I had had experience working with those