Longer interviews…

Traditionally September is the preeminent month in the Irish recorded music calendar. Each year, more Irish albums are released over the four weeks of September than at any other time of the year. As the month comes to a close, Andrew Hamilton runs the rule over some of the best and the worst Irish album released this September.

As the transfer window in the English Premier League comes to a close each August, across the Irish Sea, another much more exciting window is thrown opening.
Whether because of luck, tradition or some devilishly devised corporate marketing strategy, the main crop of Irish recorded music comes to ripen in the month of September. And this year was no exception.
One of most high profile releases comes from Eleanor McEvoy. Described as McEvoy’s eight studio album, Singles Out could better be described as a montage of her previous work.
Featuring a collection of songs all previously released over the last decade, the album is a Best-Of in all but name and beautifully crafted and sang as they are, they offer little new to McEvoy fans.
This is with the notable exception of lead track ‘Oh Uganda’ – written during McEvoy’s trip to the African country as a guest of Oxfam last year. Lively and heartfelt, the song is worthy of a place among some of McEvoy’s best numbers. Singled Out was released yesterday, September 28, on Moscodisc Records.
Dublin alt-electro four piece CODES burst onto the national airways in mid-2008 following their appearance on DownloadMusic.ie’s USB album. Their contribution, the previously unreleased super-single ‘This Is Good-bye’, marked CODES out as a band to pay attention to – a band with real potential.
While their debut album Trees Dream In Algebra doesn’t come close to living up to that early promise, it does have a lot to recommend it. With songs like ‘You Are Here’ and ‘Our Mysteries’ – CODES have enough to suggest that they may produce a great album in the future. This, unfortunately, isn’t it. Trees Dream In Algebra was released on September 18.
Released on the same day, After the Wedding is the debut album from Monaghan band Snazkrit. Possibly the pick of all this years September releases, the album is brimming with quality – mixing a delicate sense of tunefulness with an altogether more rare talent for writing great songs.
With standout tracks including ‘Talk of the Town’, ‘Futila’ and ‘Uber Alt Rip [197]’ the album is worthy of a place among the best Irish albums of 2009.
Due for release early next month, You Can Make Sound is the second album from Dublin four-piece Delorentos. After a last 12 month which seemed more like the plot of Hollyoaks or Dallas than A Hard Days Night – with the on/off and on again membership of  guitarist Rónan Yourell, the lads probably did well to get a album together at all.
You Can Make Sound is the more than slightly disappointing, follow-up to the bands 2007 debut “In Love With Detail.” Apart from a few tasty moment – in songs like ‘Leave Me Alone’ and ‘Body Cold’ – this is the sound of a band threading water, or possible just fighting to stay alive. You Can Make Sound will be released on DeloRecords on October 9.
Last but definitely not least, the return of 8Ball has been long anticipated in certain music circles around Ireland. Due for release on October 11, With All Your Friends just about makes it inside the September album release window (indeed, it probably wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been so good).
This album is a real triumph, both in style (think Hotchip with a since of humour) and delivery. Welcome back 8Ball.
Of course, there were plenty of albums that didn’t quite make it to release in time for the September. Originally penciled in for release this month, fans of Cork electro-metalers Hooray for Humans will have to wait just a little longer for the follow-up to their near universally acclaimed 2007 debut Safekeeping.
The band hit the studio in August with the new music described by them as “our heaviest shit yet”.
Having first made her name as Damien Rice’s and Lisa Hannigan’s cellist, Vyvienne Long has gained notoriety in her own right through her debut single ‘Happy Thoughts’ – you know the one, it’s no the add for Easi Singles.
After the odd delay here and there, Long’s has decided to reschedule the release of her debut solo album ‘Caterpillar Sarabande’ – for this October so watch this space.
Sharon Corr will also be releasing an album before the end of the year, as will our northern friends Snow Patrol. Though I’m not one to judge an album before it’s times, it is certianly safe to say that I’m not exactly holding my breath for these two.
Finally, the Swell Sessions should have a new album in the record shops long before Christmas. Just what Glen and Markéta will be singing about this time (considering what’s gone down there over the last little while) is anyone’s guess – this really is soap-opera-worthy.

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Let the word go forth, David Kitt is back. As he prepares to launch his most challenging album in year, Andrew Hamilton chats to the enigmatic Dub about making music, his unique creative process and all the things that get lost in between.

For the last two years David Kitt has worked by moonlight. Endless nights alone  – shut off from the distractions of the outside world – he has immersed himself completely in his own creative process.
You see for Kitt, making music has always been a solo pursuit. It’s a change to lose himself in the search for something real, an opportunity to fantasize and push the boundaries of imagination but also a time to forget the earthy shape and spaces of the outside world.
A chance to truly be alone.
Yet now, after two years in creative solitary confinement, Kitt is finally ready to show the fruits of his midnight labours to the world.  Nightsaver is Kitt’s sixth studio album. Marked out by moments of rediscovered confidence and brash experimentation the album is a return – emotionally if not perhaps musically – to the heady days of Small Moments and The Big Romance.
“I guess I’ve always done it that way. I’ve always shut myself off and it’s been a very solitary kind of thing. The big difference in terms of this record is that when you record on your own, when you are the person pressing record button and there is noone else in a room, there is a lot of intimacy. I think there is a lot of escapism at times as well,” he says.
“Even with the backing vocals. I mean I love layering up vocals and by the time you get to the tenth vocal it’s almost like you can’t even hear it anymore. You get lost in the bed of all the other vocals and it really frees you up.
“It’s like doing those really high pitch bits on T-Rex songs or something, the lead vocals are quite mellow but when you do the backing vocals you are really letting go.
“I really enjoy the escape of all of that. You definitely go somewhere yourself when you are on your own and I think that that is something that’s important for me, to get away from my immediate surroundings. You get lost in the music.
“I mean I do have friends around me who were very much part of the process on this record. I have people there but ya, there are time there when you do cut yourself off a small bit. But that’s just the way it is. Nothing comes for free. We all have to pay our price in life but that is something that I feel that I have to do.”
As an artist Kitt has always been hard to pin down – with different records lending themselves to multiple interpretation. Defining and categorising his music is a pub argument waiting to happen.
“Maybe there are more raw bits in this but I think there is a certain sound that comes from making a record at home. It pretty much sounds the way I wanted it to sound – I didn’t have a glorious Hi-Fi sound in my head and this was the closest I could get to it.
“This is the sound that I like and these days you really do have a blank canvass with home recording being so good so I had very much a blank canvass.
“I think people like to make a story about things and journalist do have to find some sort of angle, but I have heard so many different things about this record. Everything from it being a summery kind of record to a really dark record. To me, I think that says more about the person who is listening to it rather than saying a lot about the record itself.
“But I’m thrilled with that – for me that is job done. When I started making record and putting out records I always wanted to leave enough room for the listener to do their own thing and take it their own way and I feel with this record that there really is that room. It has had suck polar opposite reactions that there must be room in the music – it doesn’t tell you how to feel. I’ve never really liked music that does that. There are exception but I really do like that openness.”
After wearing his heart so publically on his sleeve through the overtly romantic Square 1 album and again – though for different reasons – on Not Fade Away, this album is a return to a more organic, natural way of making music.
“I really cant complain. For my whole 20’s I was in relationships and I gave a lot of time to more social activities – and it’s not like I don’t do things. But I’m a single guy living on my own for two years and all I wanted to do was make music. It felt like the best thing for me to be doing at that point in time,” he said.
“I felt like I was making up for lost time in lots of ways. You do make large sacrifices when you are making music for 80 hours a week and trying to make two records at the same time. It was very much an all consuming things but at the same time there wasn’t any since of opportunity lost, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.”