Question of Taste: Myles O'Reilly on Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls and Brian Eno

The musician and filmmaker also includes the West Cork Podcast and The Handmaid's Tale in his selections

Myles O'Reilly releases a new album of ambient folk. 

Myles O'Reilly is a musician and music documentarian from Dublin. A former member of the band Juno Falls, he has also made numerous music videos and documentaries for the likes of Sinead O’Connor, Glen Hansard, and Villagers. On Thursday, June 30, Myles releases an album of ambient folk songs titled, Cocooning Heart.

Best recent book you've read and what you liked about it:

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. I'm fascinated by the cosmos and especially the role that time plays in the universe and in our day-to-day reality. The Order of Time is scientific jargon-free writing which is easy to understand for anyone without academic leanings toward the subject.

Best recent film:

It has become increasingly more difficult to watch a movie and not feel like it's over too soon, because of my hunger for more narrative due to the general rise in quality of TV programming. Adam McKay's sci-fi apocalypse movie Don't Look Up didn't fail me though, with a relentlessly engaging storyboard, heaped with drama, action and satire. It left my sci-fi junkie inner-child feeling completely satisfied.

Best recent show/gig you’ve seen:

I advise anyone to go and see an Anna Mullarkey performance. Anna is an unreal performer. Her music and band are synthesizer-driven. So often the use of synths can mean synth performers aren't very animated, a prime example of that being the motionless Kraftwerk but with Anna Mullarkey and her band this is entirely not the case. They are fascinating to watch.

Best piece of music you’ve been listening to lately (new or old):

'Slowdance, Lowtide' by the ambient drone artist Hirotaka Shirotsubaki is everything I adore about ambient music right now. It's music but not as we know it Jim. New frontiers in sound, created not to be listened to but merely be heard. Creating a sense of atmosphere, much like a perfume or incense.

First ever piece of music that really moved you:

Tracy Chapman, Fast Car. It made such an impression on my 13-year-old mind that I rate every other folk song I've heard since, in my career of filming and documenting Folk songs, on a scale of 1 to Fast Car.

The best gig or show you've ever seen (if you had to pick one!):

There have been a few gigs where I was moved to tears. Not necessarily tears of sadness but more happiness. A strange but totally cathartic reaction. The first time it happened to me was watching The Indigo Girls perform their 1990's hit Closer To Fine. I was 20 years old at the time and absolutely smitten by the feeling.

Tell us about your TV viewing:

Huge fan of The Handmaid's Tale, Severance, Dark, Black Mirror and any sci-fi TV series that attempts to push our imagination beyond the usual tropes that the sci-fi genre too regularly depend on.

Radio listening and/or podcasts:

The West Cork Podcast about the unsolved murder of French woman Sophie Toscan du Plantier is so tremendously engaging.

You're curating your dream festival – which three artists are on the bill, living or dead?

Interesting question as I have just curated my own stage at the Body&Soul festival back in June and among the artists were Robbie Perry from the band Dead Can Dance (He appeared on stage numerous times in various collaborations), Gareth Quinn Redmond, who I would rate very highly as one of Ireland's most prolific ambient music artists.... and maybe if I had enough budget to book Brian Eno, the god of ambient music himself, then all three of those acts on the one weekend would have matched my wildest dreams.

Your best/most famous celebrity encounter:

My best celebrity encounter was with Gabriel Byrne. I saw him from across the road, and because my family is so vast and sort of fractured, I thought he was a distant relative so out of guilt I automatically crossed the road to greet him, realising far too late who he actually was. Awkward to say the least.

You can portal back to any cultural event or music era – where, when, and why?

Take me back to a megalithic festival at any ceremonial site along the Boyne Valley 5,000BC please. Our ancient monuments like the passage tombs at the Hill of Tara or Uisneach were once the site of annual music festivals and religious rituals of the most epic proportions. The most common instruments from that era were wind instruments, horns and pipes. We have absolutely no idea of the songs the megalithic people played on them. It would be mind-blowing to hear their music.

In your own life, have you been doing anything in particular in relation to climate change, biodiversity, etc?

I'll do my bit right now and mention that my sister Anja Murray, who is an extremely proactive ecologist, has created a radio series with my friend and musician Brían Mac Gloinn (of Ye Vagabonds) called 'Root and Branch', celebrating Ireland's precious native trees, and creating awareness around their importance.