Tom Dunne: New life of Brian as forgotten gem gets rereleased
The Understand album by Ken Sweeney, aka Brian, is being rereleased.
“Are you still at the aul music?” is one of the most reductive, insulting things you can say to anyone that sings, writes or plays an instrument. Inherent in it are implications of “You wouldn’t think it” and “Have you not moved on?” It’s a slyer version of the old perennial, “Do you still beat your wife?” There is no right answer. Its checkmate in one move.
Implicit too is that time has shown you be no Bryan Adams or what’s that fellah called, the old guy with the beard, oh yes, Willie Nelson. You are no Willie Nelson. Small talk and a million internal deaths follow.
If you had time you might explain to your torturer that the world is full of amazing albums that never got the love they deserved. Albums that were made not with the intention to give “Bryan Adams a run for his money” but simply for the love of it.
Big bright beautiful albums full of passion and insights and melody that your torturer never heard of because he was never really “at the aul music” was he? Albums like The Stars of Heaven’s that would enrich his life if he just ever found them.
It was one such idea that inspired UK music journalist and broadcaster Pete Paphides to launch his record label Needle Mythology in 2019. It takes its name from a Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy song. That already tells you quite a lot.
Paphides at the time wanted to release albums that, being recorded in the CD era, had both never received a proper vinyl release or enjoyed the love they deserved. His first release was Ian Brody’s 2004 release Tales Told, an album for which I suspect the phrase “criminally overlooked” was invented.
He started the label because he realised that to get his hands on some of the albums that he most adored he was going to have to release them himself. Releases since then have included gems from The Lilac Time, Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens, and our own Whipping Boy.
The Whipping Boy's reissue was a triumph. On 180g double vinyl, with lyrics and liner notes and a ten-track collection of B sides and unreleased demos, it gave the work the respect it had always deserved. It is to this day named checked by Fontaines DC as an influence and is frequently voted the greatest Irish album ever.
In June, the label will turn its attention to an album called by an Irish artist called Brian. It was first released on the Setanta Records label – home to Divine Comedy, A House and Edwyn Collins – in 1992. It didn’t sell that many, but Pete bought one.
Brian was the name adopted by Ken Sweeney. Ken had been in other Irish bands in the mid-1980s but this was the ‘go-to London and try and make it’ album. It was 1989 and London was awash with Irish people in the same boat, musicians and comedians alike.
It was also the era of the sensitive male singer songwriter, a world as far away from Andrew Tate’s as it is possible to imagine. It was the time of the Blue Nile, REM, Miracle Legion, the Trashcan Sinatras and The Triffids. Marian Keyes might spot a few potential “feathery strokers” in there, but trust me Marian, gifted lyricists all!
Ken threw his heart into it. He had just come through a painful break-up and finding himself sleeping on floors in a new city, still raw and with few friends, poured all that emotion into the songs. Things had ended badly, there was guilt and sadness, the songs were a way to make sense of it.
He recorded demoes hoping Setanta would then pay for a producer to develop them further. But Setanta boss Keith Cullen loved the demoes. They became the album in 1992, now renamed for its re-release.
It is as it was intended to be, a bruised gentle paean to a relationship gone south. The sound of someone trying to make sense of their emotions in that moment where youth’s optimism is being rudely tempered but the adult world hasn’t quite arrived yet. It is gorgeous. “Traumatised jangly guitar music,” as he says himself.
And, as you ask, Ken is “still at the aul music” both as an award-winning entertainment journalist and award-winning music documentary maker. Needle Mythology’s motto is “Giving beautiful records the release they deserve.” gets that treatment on June 27.
