The queen of Irish country returns: CMAT throws serious shapes in her new video
CMAT: "doing it for the girls and the gays".
Ciara Mary Alice Thompson, better known to Irish music heads as CMAT, has been very much ploughing her own furrow since she emerged in earnest in recent years.
Bringing a very Irish indie musical sensibility together with a kind of hyper-real take on sepia-toned Americana informed by the likes of Dolly Parton, she's brought herself close to the heart of the wider scene, with an ear for hooks, and videos that have felt like stageworthy musicals in their own right, drawing from her own experience in dance and choreography.
The video for new single 'I Don't Really Care For You', released earlier today, is no exception: if anything it ups the ante, with the help of Dublin video crew TinyArk (recently seen producing the Other Voices: Courage and Ireland Music Week live streams).
Working with the source material's focus on tensions and blame within frustrating or aimless relationships, the video very much brings attention to the use of our eyes in these situations, whether with awkward aversions of our gaze, or the steely looks we give ourselves in the mirror.
But it wouldn't be CMAT without a detailed dance routine, and between the solo shape-throwing on display, and the fantasy-sequence tandem steps, all fuzzy and pastel-hued, the whole affair bristles with fun and unique charisma.
She's built a cult following within the wide and sprawling Venn diagram of Irish indie, and earned a friend in author Marian Keyes, who approves of the mention of her in the song's third line.
- 'I Don't Really Care For You' is streaming above, and on all streaming services.Â
