Demolitions, viruses, cowboys: 10 talking points from Irish music in 2021
For Those I Love [David Balfe], Nancy Spains, and CMAT.
Ever-rising popstar CMAT, who supported Declan McKenna on a UK tour in the autumn and plays the hot-for-2022 festival Eurosonic in January, has released a slew of great songs over 2021, the highlight being ‘No More Virgos’ (better than anything on ABBA’s comeback album?). Her first single, last year’s ‘I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!’, was one of the hits of lockdown and had us all pining for a Stetson and a linedance.
Inventive Cork musician Yenkee - aka Graham Cooney - has been similarly influenced by the titular ‘Dolly’ of his latest single. Considering his attire in the accompanying (Kojaque-directed) video, we can’t help but notice a trend. Add in Garth Brooks’ five-night sellout return to Croke Park and it looks like we all wanna be cowboys, baby!
Tolu Makay covered the Saw Doctor’s ‘N17’ with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for the station’s NYE countdown last year - and proceeded to dominate the ensuing year. The track was an instant radio hit.
From there, Makay, born in Nigeria and raised in the Irish midlands, conversed with Saw Doctors frontman Leo Moran for RTÉ’s always sterling arts show Arena, and alongside poet and friend Felispeaks, barnstormed the Tommy Tiernan Show. The pair have since started a podcast/streaming chat show.
Following an Irish tour, Makay looked like a superstar by the time she walked down the aisle of St James’ Church in Dingle for Other Voices to cap a remarkable year. She releases her debut album early in 2022 - Tolu Makay is only getting started.
The Government dragged its feet on putting on pilot gigs this year, with James Vincent McMorrow playing to 500 socially distanced people in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens in June. The crowd wasn’t tested though, so we were left wondering what the point of it all was.
A ‘festival’ at Royal Hospital Kilmainham saw 3,500 attendees get tests before they could enter, though they still had to sit in pods at picnic tables. Add in fencing for as far as the eye could see, and a dystopian message about posting on social media about the fun you're having... well, the appeal didn’t last.
When gigs were finally given the green light to resume from September 6, it was at 60% capacity and no testing required. It felt like an arbitrary figure until full-capacity gigs finally came back on October 22. So what did we learn from the two pilot events? Er…
Watching the incredible For Those I Love perform in front of an audience in Dublin for the first time, at the Olympia last month, was an experience. Dave Balfe’s self-titled debut album is raw, revealing, and full of emotion - fear, anger, and yes, love - and live, the crowd was left wiping tears away. A sample lyrics, from ‘Birthday/The Pain: “You spend your whole life being brave, and you hope things will change.”
Balfe is among a growing cohort of Irish artists who are putting mental health at the centre of their lyrics. Galway singer-songwriter Maria Kelly, who recently supported Kodaline on their Irish tour, released the superb debut album The Sum of the In-Between in October, a collection of tracks collating her worries and hopes.
Fears - aka Constance Keane, who is one part of the aforementioned M(h)aol - on her debut Oiche, took us into hospital with her lyrics. West Cork artist Rushes, meanwhile, released an infectious song, whose title needs no explanation: ‘Lost in Therapy’.
The demolition of the building adjacent to the Granary in Limerick City at the end of November, as part of the Opera site redevelopment, seemed symbolic. Though closed for a number of years, it had previously played host to nightclubs like Trinity Rooms, Doc’s, and Crush.
In Galway, meanwhile, Electric announced that the pandemic and ever-changing restrictions had taken its toll: “There are only so many times we can go back to our community and ask them to stick with us for another few weeks. Now that day has come that we can wait no longer. We are left with no other option than to put this building on the market.”
After over 18 months of silence, nightclubs were only given three weeks from the end of October before a midnight closing time was implemented. Some pivoted to opening earlier, though they were quickly shut down. So not only are we asking when we'll dance again, but also where will be left to dance in?
Dry Cleaning’s debut album, New Long Leg, is one you’ll be seeing in numerous best-of lists this December.
The post-punk band is fronted by Florence Shaw, whose musings are a collage of the everyday, spoken rather than shouted. It’s become a prolific style, stretching from Soulwax’s remix of Fontaines DC’s ‘A Hero’s Death’ through to the hottest band of the year, the Isle of Wight’s Wet Leg (‘Chaise Longue’) as well as tipped Irish acts like Sinead O’Brien and M(h)aol.
The Ringer website has pointed out that there is of course a German word for this kind of ‘talk-singing’ - expect to hear a lot more sprechgesang over the next 12 months.
The historic and long-closed Nancy Spains pub in Cork was knocked in the summer, leading to a coterie of misty-eyed tweets about gigs there down the years, from David Gray to Fugazi to Therapy?
Human remains have been since found on the site, set for a 32-unit social housing project, which of course is to be welcomed in the midst of a housing crisis.
In Dublin, meanwhile, another musical institution, the Cobblestone in Smithfield, found itself the subject of planning permission for a hotel. The pub is renowned for its trad sessions, and protests across the city centre drew thousands in the weeks after the plans were revealed. At the end of November, the city council announced that over 700 objections were submitted and that it had refused permission.
It felt like a symbolic victory for Ireland’s musicians.
One of the themes of the year across Irish music this year has been collaboration. Perhaps the most obvious, and successful, is Mick Flannery and SON: In The Game is one of the albums of the year and has seen them announced for Iveagh Gardens next summer (surely back to its full 5,000-plus capacity by then?).
HousePlants saw electronic producer Daithi link up with Bell X1 frontman Paul Noonan, the resultant live shows to go with the LP Dry Goods will fill the LCD Soundsystem-shaped hole in your dancing shoes.
The X Collective was launched last year, with music, collaboration, and artistic expression at its core; headed by vocalists Jess Kav, Senita, and Toshín, a mass-collaborative album including over 35 contributors is due for release in 2022.
Meanwhile, Clare Sands has released four singles this year to coincide with the seasons, travelling to each province to record with a musician there. The resultant tracks are some of the strongest work by any artist this year.
Gilla Band (who changed their name from Girl Band) are the most influential act to come out of Ireland in the past decade and it’s been no surprise to see young pretenders emerge.
Melts and Sprints are both hotly tipped for 2022 and are imbued with the Gilla Band sound - indeed both have recorded with Gilla Band bassist and producer Daniel Fox.
We’re also starting to see the Fontaines DC influence - Galway act the Clockworks are winning acclaim in the UK and have signed with Alan McGee’s latest label venture, It’s Creation Baby.
Gemma Dunleavy’s ‘Up De Flats’ was released in 2020 but it still resonates.
When she played it at It Takes a Village festival at Trabolgan in September, it was joyous. Joined by family and friends for her headliner at Dublin’s Academy a month later, you could feel the crowd shaking off 18 months of stagnation. It’s already one of the songs of the decade.
The development of Villagers and Conor O’Brien continues, with fifth album Fever Dreams a loved-up affair with lead single ‘The First Day’ a stirring call of blissful wonder. The brass shakes your bones.
Galway’s NewDad have become firm favourites of BBC6 Music’s playlists this year and their brand of sunshine slacker pop is infectious. It’s impossible to not leave ‘Ladybird’ on repeat.
