Tom Dunne: MayKay will definitely warm your ears with debut solo album
MayKay recently released her self-titled debut album. Picture: Sally MacMonagle
As CMAT (odds from 9/5 to 15/8) and Fontaines DC (odds from 4/1 to 11/4) vie to win the prestigious Mercury Prize in the UK on Thursday night, another Irish album gets a release this week that could give both pause for thought.
Former Fight Like Apes singer MayKay has released a solo album, at last.
I say “at last” because it has been nine years since FLAs told the world to “Stick a fork in us we’re done.”
They’d wanted to call it a day whilst still friends. In retrospect that looks prescient. The head winds they were facing looked insurmountable then; they look worse now.
But the “friends” bit was even more important. MayKay had met fellow band mate Jamie whilst on a holiday in Spain with her family.
Realising they were in schools not far from each other she told Jamie of her love of singing. He immediately had her sign a contract on a piece of tissue saying she would always sing with him.
There followed, after a little bit, ten years of Fight Like Apes, 2006 to 2016. There were UK and US tours, albums, sold out shows, rave reviews and celebrity fans: Jonathan Ross and the Prodigy’s Liam Howlett. But it wasn’t to be.
I’m not sure people quite realise what a hard experience that is.
When you’ve put every piece of your energy, creativity, time and optimism into something and then have to accept that it isn’t enough: it hurts deeply. It’s like your first love. It’s the breakup you take with you.
It makes stepping into a solo career daunting. The move from “we wrote” to “I wrote” is a giant one.
As MayKay says: “With Fight Like Apes it was always me and Jamie, and you can kinda hang in the shadows when you write that way. You're only taking on half the credit or half the criticism.
“I'd no one to hide behind this time and I find that made me feel like I was on rocky ground. But now that it's out it's what makes me feel incredibly grounded in it.”
Two things combined to set this album in motion. The first was discovering a piece of music by Dublin musician Ian McFarlane.
There was something to it that suggested lyrics and a melody to MayKay. She reached out. “Have you more like this?” she wondered. As luck would have it, he did.
And then there was covid. Lock down saw MayKay take refuge in the old grain store on her father’s farm. There was no putting off the songwriting.
It was not long after her dad had passed. She was processing grief, unpicking relationships, and carrying on. There was a lot to face into. But the songs came quickly and the result, as you will hear, is joyous.
The subsequent delay in releasing those songs was down to confidence too it seems. “There was already so much music out there,” she said, “Why add to it?”
But now she feels, as the world is burning it’s more a case of “Why not?” I’d argue the fact that the world is burning is exactly the reason we need music like this.
That confidence is a recurring theme with MayKay might surprise anyone who had heard her numerous collaborations. She tends to own the tracks she guests on.
As she says: “I don't think someone cold calls you to work on something unless they think you're good and they obviously really believe it, so there's serious motivation in that.”
For this she has had to step out alone. It is that honestly, that bravery, that perception, and that voice, that makes this one of the best albums of 2025. The Fight Like Apes wit and optimism fired by experience, loss and life, but still intact.
There are many stand outs. Songs like and are full of wit and honesty and emotion, but is the one I keep going back to. It walks a fine line balancing a child’s view with our later adult understanding of the loss.
MayKay’s dad used to bring them to funerals. She grew up with them, like a kind of family occasion with sandwiches, rituals and song. “We’ll be together when your bell rings” sings MayKay in one of the lines of the year. As for Boys, phew. I’ll need more time with that.
And above all else: that voice.
