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SOUNDS GOOD Joe Joyce Finghín Little Sophia McDon
ald Sinead O’Brien Time Bend and Break the Bower [Chess Club Records] Oisin Mod Honeycomb [OMOD Records] Sinead O’Brien joins an impressive roster of Irish acts who are making their voices heard. A mix of spoken and slam poetry, Time Bend and Break the Bower is a unique and gutsy debut album. Her way with words is lyrical and will fill you with a fondness for modern Irish music. The storytelling aspect of the record does feel reminiscent of a Seanchaí, tales of recent folklore put to 808 beats. Where her expressiveness is to be praised, there are mismatched energies between the melody and her vocals. Time Bend and Break the Bower doesn’t fall into the trap of sounding repetitive. There’s no hint of O’Brien being preachy and her vocals are complimented well by energetic rock instrumentals and semi-cinematic crescendos. However, there can be moments where the theatrics take over like on Like Culture. The unconventional loses some charm when the tracks become ungrounded. Comparing the likes of Holy Country which uses the soundtrack to ground O’Brien’s vocals to Spare or My Size, Me, you can feel the influence of Róisín Murphy but something has been mistranslated. A mystical atmosphere follows each track as the record progresses. Weaving a tapestry of lyrics, O’Brien casts musical spells recounting the world ending and restarting again on Salt and the land of possibilities on End of Days. Mixing primal with electronic, she puts her voice centre stage for better or for worse. Once a middle ground is reached between the band and O’Brien’s poetic vocals, some truly powerful music could be produced. SMcD In his Bandcamp profile photo, Galway-based singer songwriter Oisin Mod sits on the carpet in front of a stereo system. There are two record covers visible in the image; Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and the Tom Waits compilation album Bounced Checks. The influence of both Springsteen and Waits can be felt over the course of Mod’s debut album Honeycomb, most plainly of all on the title track when some Jersey Girl style “sha-la-las” show up in the background. But while Waits growled and Springsteen crooned, Mod prefers a softer and more understated singing style that’s complemented by The Coral co-founder Bill Ryder-Jones’ warm production. Amongst the ten languid tracks, there are a few standouts. Lavender is a slice of gothic indie that wouldn’t sound out of place in an episode of True Detective and on Still Enough the production approaches almost jaunty levels and Mod’s relaxed vocals sound great when the tempo is raised a bit. On Broken Record, with its lyrics about “diamonds in the sky” and a mellotron riffing knowingly in the background, Mod and Ryder Jones wear their ‘60s influences on their sleeves. Pastiche is narrowly avoided and the song emerges as a sincere retro pop tribute. The downside of the simple instrumentation and consistently downtempo mood is that some of the tracks inevitably blur together but, thanks to Mod’s knack for a unique lyrical detail and an often captivating voice that toggles between sensitive whisper and ironic sneer, it’s a pleasant blur. JJ Sean Carpio Waves of a Present [Ten Spot Records] Sean Carpio’s debut solo album Waves of a Present, makes a one-man-band of the trained jazz drummer. Over twenty minutes, the multiinstrumentalist delivers a tranche of dreamy tracks that float between sombre and ethereal moods. This energy and atmosphere is built-up through the dense, reverb-drenched production and the climactic presence of thick, booming percussion, which both make a consistent appearance across the six tracks. Ancestral Love captures the overall mood well, swelling from downtrodden energy to something higher with the help of its pleasantly off-kilter drumming. A worthy lead single, accompanied by a visually dreamlike video, it is easily the catchiest track on the record, buoyed by Carpio’s shoegazing vocals and the live, smoky ambience it captures. Dunes is calmer chamber pop, with cleaner chords and harmony straight from the Lennon-McCartney playbook happily transplanted to a reserved but shimmering setting. A slightly more grooving soundscape flows in a lighter and carefree manner in Floating Mountain, where Aoife Nessa Frances’ voice brings a warm complement, though it seems to resolve in no particular direction. Equally, the final track, Sm/ Nd, which adopts a sedate and proggy mood and features menacing, growling whispers under the distant harmonies throughout the album, stops suddenly, disturbing its harsher energy and jammy flow. The LP’s title refers to a method of dating meteorites, one of many allusions to the cosmos. Throughout, Waves of a Present reflects on human experiences of love, spirit, and the vastness of time, diluted by a metaphysical, even sci-fi lyrical distance. FL CLICK IT OUT… 46 We know it and so should you food, fashion, photography, film, books, magazines, music, design, drink and a curated section of events for you to consider www.totallydublin.ie