Wyvern Lingo: 'We are harder to market because we are women'
Wyvern Lingo are about to release their second album. Picture: Miguel Ruiz
Wyvern Lingo are not supposed to be talking in Ireland via Zoom. They are meant to be in Berlin, the city the Wicklow-born trio made their home in early 2020, renting apartments and establishing themselves on the live music scene. It’s also where they recorded Awake You Lie, their sophomore album due on February 26 on Rubyworks.
Caoimhe Barry (vocals, drums, guitar), Karen Cowley (vocals, synth, bass) and Saoirse Duane (vocals, guitar) are a dream musical package. Singers who also write and play instruments, their music is autobiographical in the main.
Awake You Lie is their most accomplished body of work to date, showcasing how far the band have come in their composition and musicianship since their self-titled debut album in 2018.
“As musicians, we are getting better,” says Duane. “Our music goes a bit more mad in places that mightn't have before. We are confident enough now to kind of go with that feeling.”
As songwriters, suggests Barry, the trio have circled back to their roots. “Our musicianship is matching our ambition now, I think. When I look back at what we've done in the last few years it feels a bit experimental like we are trying to push the boundaries of what Wyvern Lingo sounds like.” Now, she says, they have gone back to a sound that is influenced by song-writing from the 1960s and '70s, with some early Noughties R&B vocals.
The pressure on a band in the creation of their first album is huge, says Barry. “At the time it seemed like it was THE album and it had so much energy and different moods and it felt like it had to be everything. With this one, it was an opportunity for us to ask ourselves 'where are we at and what is our collective work at this time'.”
A journey of self-exploration, Wyvern Lingo took a cold hard look in the mirror while writing the songs on Awake You Lie. 'Rapture', the second single off the album, is a soaring tribute to long-distance love. “The lows we feel could never beat us,” sings Cowley, who says it’s about being “completely overwhelmed by the mere existence of someone, even when apart”.
Their songs are cathartic as much for the songwriters as they will be for audiences. “We are very sincere songwriters and what we were going through was a lot of anxiety and a lot of panic of where we are at in our lives,” says Barry. “That cliché of being in your late-twenties wondering if you have made all the right decisions. Wondering if there are changes that need to happen and what those are. It's kind of nice for us that the story ends with us recording it in Berlin and making that change and starting the new chapter.”
Only Love, Only Light is the third teaser single and opening track to the album. It features bold harmonies and the backing tracks include the sound of a coffee being poured – it was recorded in a sitting room, which was the only space they could get the exact sound they wanted – the coffee was an added bonus.
Coming back to Ireland and riding out the pandemic has offered a unique space to breathe and consider their work, says Barry. “Everybody is going through this kind of collective trauma,” she suggests. “There is a lot to process about what is going on every day. The world was pretty tumultuous as it was and then for this to take off has been a lot for people to process and deal with. For us as creatively motivated people, it meant that we had time to tuck ourselves away and be self-directed which we would have had experience of doing anyway, as songwriters.”
Since they’ve been home, the band has afforded themselves space to consider their work apart from each other, which has given a new perspective, and ultimately a better end product. It has also given them time for retrospection.
“It is always crazy looking back,” maintains Barry. “I think we are quite obsessive about styles and ideas and ways of doing things when we are doing them. I think sometimes we forget how far we've come and it's nice sometimes to look back at things and see with our older brains the music or lyrical journeys that we have been on.”
In late 2020, Wyvern Lingo joined Women in Harmony to release Together at Christmas in support of Childline, and it was hugely positive experience for the band, says Cowley. “It is a really genuine group of women who want to work together and lift each other up and it's really inspiring. We've been around on the scene long enough to have had many times where we were the only female act on a bill but that is happening a lot less, which is good. I think without a doubt we are harder to market because we are women.”
One of the tracks on the album, 'Ask Away', is Barry's response to an unpleasant situation when she was the only female on a music panel. “It's about an interview where I was on a panel with other songwriters who happened to be male. They were asked about process and I was asked specifically 'so you're the female, what's that all about?','” Barry explains. “I was the token gal on the panel to give the female perspective, but not in relation to the work that I make.”
In this time of veil-lifting, Cowley says she was glad to see the publication of the Gender Disparity Data Report, which underlined the lesser amount of radio play Irish female artists received in comparison to their male equivalents.
“It was nice to see it come out because these are things that we have always known,” says Cowley. “Then to actually see the facts and figures and see that it's not necessarily because we are not good enough.” Wyvern Lingo know exactly where they stand as a band, she points out. “We are aware that our music is not pop-central enough for mainstream Irish radio, and we are ok with that, but it is unfair to see our peers and colleagues not in the running when they should be. Talking about gender balance feels like a conversation of the 1990s or the Noughties but at the same time it's so necessary.”
It’s a global problem with the music industry, but that is no excuse to ignore the issues on home shores, she says. “We find especially in Germany from spending a lot of time there that it's just so much less of an issue. There are so many more female acts and there are less eyebrows raised and less assumptions that go with that. It's a weird one, because you want to approach these things without being tokenistic also, and you want to do it in a way that brings artistic endeavours to the forefront.”
- Awake You Lie is out on February 26
