Dublin sextet little xs for eyes (left to right): Adrian Reilly, Harry Bookless, Michelle Considine, Lucy Jackson, Bennie Reilly and Davey Moor
The eyes have it
THE SOUNDS OF 2012 #6
LITTLE XS FOR EYES Three Irish girls and three Irish boys making effervescent folk-pop with luscious melodies that gently massage your temples before the bittersweetness digs you in the ribs
The band’s 2011 debut LP was funded by fans
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Last year was a big one for little xs for eyes. (And with that name, they’re that rare band that can legitimately get away with the nocapital-letters thing.) Their debut album S.A.D. led to capital Os for mouths, with critics raving about eclectic talents, using words like “swoonsome”, “delicious” and “wistful”. The Dublin six-piece brew an intoxicating mash of friendly melancholia and melodic pop. Think the soundtrack to an Irish sequel to Juno, with a good dollop of Feist and St Etienne. This is quite something for a band that began as an acoustic boyfriend-girlfriend pairing. “We were definitely more folky when we started out,” explains Michelle Considine, who became
the band’s third member in the wake of original twosome Bennie Reilly and Davey Moor. “In the last couple of years we’ve incorporated synths, and even a doo-wop vocal harmony. I picked up a Korg and Lucy [Jackson] plays keys too, and this was bound to affect the band’s sound. We mix things up. Lots of mandolin, ukulele, glockenspiel. I suppose we also have an ’80s influence. We like to experiment.” Experimentation is trending on the Irish music scene right now. Considine sees it as a positive resulting from Ireland’s economic struggles. Every cloud… “The recession has freed up more spaces that are rentable for cheap. People have less work and more
time to make music and art! Then there’s showcase events like Hard Working Class Heroes and Camden Crawl, which give people an opportunity to see loads of the best bands over a few days. People are just doing it for themselves, making things happen. We used Fund It to raise money to finish our album,” she says, referring to the Irish crowd-funding website through which the band received the best part of €3,000 from fans and well-wishers. It’s an increasingly common way for small- and medium-sized creative projects to get the cash they need to be realised. In little xs for eyes’s case, the three grand paid for studio time with a producer, Eoin Bailey, the making of CDs