AE Mak’s final single before her debut album lands later this month.
AE MAK shares ‘Last Night You Cried to Bach’ releases ‘Last Night You Cried to Bach’ today, the fourth and final single from her debut album Folk Songs For Mama & Papa, out May 29th via Spacer Records. Watch the video below.
It’s a theatrical piano waltz – arranged and performed by Kevin Corcoran, recorded with Brian Mac Gloinn – that manages to be funny and devastating in roughly equal measure. The premise is exactly what the title says: being on acid, listening to Bach, and arriving at a moment of clarity so complete it becomes its own kind of grief. Humour, heartbreak and spiritual revelation sharing the same few minutes, which is a hard thing to pull off which Aoife is capable of doing.
AE MAK on the track:
“Last Night You Cried To Bach is about being on acid and listening to Bach. Realising all the fear whirls and uncertainties in life aren’t real and it’s all for you, it’s right there for the taking. I knew it was all for me, it was all mine for the taking.”
On how the vocal was recorded:
“I was singing Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice’ at parties around the time and knew I wanted my voice to resonate and hit my body the way it did with that. So it’s in a similar range and hits the chest cavity at full force when I sing it. I wanted it to have punch and character and satire but also sophistication and poise. It’s silly and brilliant, I think, this whole thing. I hope it makes people laugh. It makes me cry.”
Folk Songs For Mama & Papa marks a genuine shift from the character-driven art-pop of her earlier work – voice, spirit and folk at the centre, influenced by Björk, Aldous Harding, Judee Sill and Paul Simon.
Hear ‘Love Free’, ‘Famous’ with Talos, ‘We Came From Stars’ and the title track .
AE MAK tour dates
- May 29th – Spindizzy Dublin 5:30pm (Instore record release show)
- May 30th – Music Zone Cork 1pm (Instore record release show)
- May 30th – Steamboat Limerick 5pm (Instore record release show)
- May 31st – When Next We Meet, Raheen House, Co. Tipperary
- June 12th + 13th – Beyond the Pale
- July 23rd -Workman’s, Dublin
Folk Songs For Mama & Papa – out May 29th via Spacer Records. Pre-save now.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
