Les SalAmandas: International folk collaboration created in Ballydehob

A French woman and a West Cork local have just released their debut album 
Les SalAmandas: International folk collaboration created in Ballydehob

Colyne Laverriere and Julie O’Sullivan of Les SalAmandas. Picture: Jason Lee 

It’s a wiry but warm energy that Colyne Laverriere, one-half of Ballydehob-based folk duo Les SalAmandas, exudes over Zoom. With the duo having recently launched their debut album There’s a Sea Between Us at village venue Levis, the French singer  is clearly on a little bit of a buzz. 

Bone of this might have happened for Laverriere, a self-proclaimed ‘sports girl’, if she hadn’t moved to the West Cork town to find au pair work, to allow her to stay in a country she’d clearly fallen in love with.

"I remember how I felt when I got off the bus from Cork, and it literally stopped in front of Levis. I looked around and I was like, 'oh my god, what have you done to yourself? There's nothing here. There's literally just one street'.

“After a few months, I decided to stay a bit longer, and so ended up staying for nine months with the family, fell in love with the kids, and West Cork. Then  I wasn't ready to go back to France, so I got a job in Budds, in the café.” 

Ballydehob is a small place, but carries a creative energy driven by community - from the denizens of Levis and its many gigs and events, to the village’s annual jazz and bluegrass festivals.

Working in the town’s Budds café, Laverriere happened across a willing co-conspirator in Julie O’Sullivan, and the pair started writing songs as a duo - no mean feat, considering her own lack of any sort of musical experience.

“I didn't like her when I first met her, because I'm French and I'm full of notions," she laughs.  "After a while, she said 'you want to start a band?', and I was like, 'yeah, why not?'.

“We started singing together and I was amazed - she was just after playing guitar, maybe for a year, but I thought she was the most amazing guitar player ever. She could literally play C, G, A and F, but for me, it was like, 'whoa, she's so good, she can play anything'.

“We just started hanging out, and going to Levis' together, going to gigs together. One day, she just picked up the guitar and started playing in Levis, and I remember Joe O'Leary [Cork music stalwart and co-owner of Levis] coming into the room, and saying 'whose song is that?'. I said we wrote it, and he was like 'ah, interesting'."

Laverriere is obviously impressed with Ballydehob.  “It's amazing, it's just this tiny little village at the end of the world, it's just the most creative place and we're very, very lucky.”

Working over the course of the Covid crisis, the band slowly began to collect their songs to date and put them together for what would become their debut long-player, accounting for their first few years as a band with the help of producer Daniel Ledwell (Mick Flannery, etc), finishing the album at his residential studios in Lake Echo, Nova Scotia, Canada.

“The studio was on the lake, so it was like everything you picture Canada is - we were in the pine trees, and then going for a swim in the lake after recording. I think it was the first time in my life I had a nine-to-five, for ten days.

“It wasn't the American dream, but the Canadian dream - driving on the highway, going to the studio. It was the first time Julie had to drive on the other side of the road, we had a few moments where we thought we might die [laughs].

“Everything was so different, the food, the size of things, it's madness. And because I tend to be really West Cork outside of West Cork, people couldn't really understand my accent there! But it's a beautiful country, and if I had to go back, I'd do it in a second.” 

With the duo’s debut album under their belts, along with a nomination for ‘Best Emerging Artist’ in RTÉ Radio 1’s 2022 Folk Awards, it’s hard not to match their excitement for their album-launch leg of gigs and what lies ahead.

  • Les SalAmandas’ debut album, There’s a Sea Between Us, is out now. The duo play  Coughlan’s in Cork on March 3;  Whelan’s in Dublin on March 23; The Commercial, Limerick, March 24; Levis Ballydehob, March 26,

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