ENTERTAINMENT 25
November 24 2014
N TE THE BEAT
By Jessica Thompson This week is the last week of the semester, excluding study week and exams, so why not soak up some of the great live music happening in town before disappearing into a cave to study and experience the wonder of sleep deprivation? There’s plenty of music events going on in Galway’s various venues and two such events are the Raglans in the Roisin Dubh on 27 November, and Ultan Conlon in Kelly’s on 28 November.
The Raglans are a fourpiece band, which started when singer Ste and bassist Rhos met at a festival a couple of years ago. “Next thing we knew, we were playing gigs and people were coming to see us. It all happened real fast. We released our debut album this year and have been gigging and touring all over Ireland, the UK and Europe since. Life is good,” the guys said. With a variety of influences from indie to folk, punk to rock, there’s bound to be something for everyone in the mix.
“We’re a live band, so we’ve always been into music that’s energetic. We’ll listen to anything and try anything. If it sticks, happy days; if not, we’ll move on.” Other things that influence the band are people, life, times and places – so anything they come across is turned into music. Since the band formed in 2010, Raglans have undergone a huge rise in popularity, which has taken them from gig-opening favourites in Dublin to garnering widespread recognition across the UK as special guests to international acts such as The Courteeners, Haim and The Libertines in a sold-out Hyde Parke. This summer alone, they have performed at Electric Picnic, Sea Sessions, Latitude, Indiependence, Redfest, Deershed and Camden Rocks to name but a few.
Damien Rice: My Favourite Faded Fantasy By John Brennan Damien Rice released his first standalone album in eight years recently. It is for all intents and purposes a polished exemplary semiacoustic masterpiece. In the intervening eight years he has floated between obscurity and irrelevance. Yet, he returns with the panache and softly spoken power you’d expect from the man who penned the likes of ‘Rootless Tree’, ‘Cannonball’ and ‘ The Blowers Daughter’. My Fav our ite Faded Fantasy opens with the eponymous title track. It is soft, irreverent and beautiful. It’s gentle and coaxes the listener into delving deeper into this album. Rick Rubin has worked his magic here, taking the reclusive Kildare man to new heights. It’s magical stuff. ‘It takes a lot to know a man’ ups the ante with a melodramatic nine-minute odyssey of a sadness and regret. It’s delicately poised and controlled. Whisper quiet and wistful in parts, it’s an emotional spectrum of sorts, slow and teasing but never dull.
‘The greatest bastard’ is an ode to Lisa Hannigan and the breakdown of their personal and professional relationship. It’s raw, frank and honest. Beyond that, it’s just simply stunning. Damien is still in parts, trapped in his self-depreciating lyrical woe, but it’s genuinely compulsive listening. The fourth track ‘I don’t want to change you’ is a song built upon crescendos. His lyrics are kinder than before here, there is undoubtedly an undercurrent of longing flowing through the album and it’s never clearer than on this track. This is a simply gorgeous track. At this stage the album reaches its halfway point. ‘Colour me in’ harkens back to the days of O with a powerfully withdrawn vocal-driven masterpiece, slowly building towards a wonderfully orchestrated climax. ‘All these useless dreams of living ’ captures the tone here; it’s a Damien Rice album after all. You shouldn’t be expecting sunshine and daisies. ‘The Box’ is one of the
strongest tracks on the album and undoubtedly shows glimpses of 9 and some of his B-Sides too. It’s a melancholy lyric-driven song, it’s thought-provoking in that it gives great insight to the man as opposed to the performer. Ultimately it’s a great song laden with crescendos and crashes. ‘ Trusty and True’ is a fantastic song too; the album is full of them. It’s got a bleak positivity about it with a real Irish feel to it. His voice really shines through here as he seems determined to let go of the past; “We can’t take back what is done, what is past, so let us start from here”. ‘Long Long Way’ sees the album culminate with a defiant bang. It’s surprisingly uplifting for a Damien Rice song – gentle in parts, loud and persuasive in others. Overall My Favourite Faded Fantasy is a frankly breath-taking album and arguably one of the best to come from an Irish artist in the last few years. A simply stunning return to form, he has crafted an album of astonishing depth.
Raglans and Ultan Conlon to perform Galway gigs But, naturally, Galway is one of those places that stay in their memories. “We’ve done a few gigs in Galway over the last couple of years. It’s great – lots of people who are up for a good time and lots of cool venues. What more could you ask for?” And the guys show no sign of stopping with plans to keep gigging in 2015; “We started
this band to play gigs and travel and so far that’s what we’ve been doing, so we’re just gonna keep going!” Raglans will perform live at the Roisin Dubh on Thursday 27 November. Tickets are €12. Show starts at 9pm. Another artist worthy of your time this week is Ultan Conlon. With two studio albums, three EPs and a feature film soundtrack and score under his belt, Ultan is a rising star in the music industry. “I’ve been playing and writing songs since I was in my early teens and have never managed to stop,” he said. And he shows no signs of stopping yet with plans to gig as much as possible in the new year when he will also be recording new songs; “my favourite part of all”. Galway-based Ultan recorded his latest album
Songs of Love so Cruel in Yellow Arch Studios, Sheffield with Richard Hawley and Colin Elliot. In 2006, he played in a two-piece harmony band called ‘Ultan John’ with Galway-based singer/songwriter John Conneely. To top it all off, one of his songs, ‘Really Gone’ was recorded by “the legendary” John Martyn, an also featured in Songs for Amy, a feature film for which Ultan recorded the soundtrack and co-composed the score with Galway guitarist Eoin McCann. Things never seem to stop for Ultan who is influenced by anything and everything; “My main influence comes form songs I hear. I don’t care who wrote them; if I like them, they influence me.” Ultan will perform upstairs in Kelly’s on Friday 28 November. Tickets cost €10. Doors open at 9pm.
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