Artist: Conor O’Brien

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Loose Joints Podcast: Live at Another Love Story with Conor O’Brien & Richie Egan

Loose Joints is a podcast where we talk to a guest and play music they like new and old. True to the name, the podcast features a loose collection of tunes, tied together by very little logic, just like our chats. Nialler9 and Sally Cinnamon are your hosts.

Another Love Story is the perfect gathering. A festival in a manor house in Meath where the audience was as integral to the vibe as the music and happenings. Lovingly organised with thoughtful programming (it finishes at 6.30 on a Sunday so it feels different to others) with attention to details down to the aesthetic of the bins.

Part of its intimacy extends to the library and front room where talks and performances happen and a sprinkle of spontaneity hangs in the air. Donal Lunny might show up and lead a folk club, your mate might start being a literal windowlicker when you’re recording a podcast as what happened when Loose Joints did a live recording of the pod with guests Conor O’Brien (Villagers) and Richie Egan (Jape).

Giddy tunes, Skin flutes, cowboy trousers, artists who are doses or not, dubstep remixes, being overshadowed by your duet collaborator, how to have a casual conversation with Bjork and outlier electronica are just some of the things we covered in our hour. Special thanks to Siobhan Kane for having us down in the Library and to the Another Love Story audience in the room and beyond.

Download: Loose Joints Podcast: Live at ALS with Conor O’Brien & Richie Egan(1 hour)

Songs played

A song that makes you feel giddy
Ponyo Theme Song (Richie)
Paul Simon – Wristband (Conor)
New music picks
Aldous Harding – Imagining My Man? (Sally)
Alex Cameron & Angel Olsen – Stranger’s Kiss (Niall)
Burnt Out – Dear James (Conor)
Lanark Arterfax – Touch Absence (Richie)
A song from your favourite festival experience
Dungen – Festival (Richie)
A post festival comedown song or album
Águas de Março by Antonio Carlos Jobim sung by Elis Regina (Conor)
A song from your favourite festival experience
Solange – Cranes In The Sky (Conor)
A song you wish you’d written
Bjork – History of Touches (Richie)
New music picks
Moon King – In & Out (Sally)
Wah Wah Wino – Paco’s Ode (Niall)
Johanna Warren – Figure 8 (Conor)
Lutto Lento – Gyal A Devil (Richie)
A post festival comedown song or album
William Basinski – Disintegration Loops 1 (Richie)
A song you wish you’d written
Big Star – Thirteen (Conor)
Kendal Johannson – Blue Moon (Niall)

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Also available in Stitcher, PocketCasts and TuneIn.

Photos: Allen Kiely.

Previous Loose Joints Episodes and tracklists

#9: Live at Science Gallery – Sample special
#8: Cian Murphy ( I Am The Cosmos)
#7:Greg Spring
#6: Gib Cassidy.
#5: Best of 2016 with May Kay.
#4: Aisling Rogerson
#3: Emmet Kirwan.
#2: Oisin Davis.
#1: Aidan Kelly.

Posted on August 23rd, 2017

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Stephen James Smith’s visual poem captures the beautiful, bad and ugly of ‘My Ireland’

‘My Ireland’ is a poem by Stephen James Smith (you will know him from ‘Dublin You Are’, at least) commissioned for St. Patrick’s Festival set to visuals by Myles O’Reilly and music by Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Inni-K, Saint Sister, Loah, Ye Vagabonds. It was all produced, recorded and mixed by Conor O’Brien.

It’s a poem about the good, the bad and the ugly of Ireland: Savita, Magdalene laundries, Zig & Zag, Apollo House, thanking bus drivers, notions, Skelligs and Star Wars, Jobsbridge, The Fear, executions at Kilmainham jail, getting the ride in Copper Face Jacks. My Ireland “knows Dunphy is a spoofer”…

Let it wash over you.

Stephen James Smith is among the performers at Young Blood: The Beats and Voices of Our Generation which will also feature Rusangano Family, Emmet Kirwan, Hare Squead and more.

Credits

Written & narrated by Stephen James Smith
Filmed & edited by Myles O’Reilly
Produced, recorded & mixed by Conor O’Brien
Violin & bouzouki by Colm Mac Con Iomaire
Backing vocals by Morgan MacIntyre & Gemma Doherty (Saint Sister), Loah & Ye Vagabonds.
Harp by Gemma Doherty (Saint Sister)
Bodhrán by Stephen James Smith
Closing song Guí by Eithne Ní Chatháin (Inni-K)

Posted on February 15th, 2017

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Rhob Cunningham – ‘The Head Collector’

Rhob Cunningham is a singer-songwriter who’s been around the Dublin scene for years, having released a band-oriented album under the name Our Little Secrets and played with a host of Irish musicians’ bands and as support act.

For his new track ‘The Head Collector’, Cunningham, who moved to Berlin this summer, has come up with an 11-minute story born out of the artist and his friend, pushing him to do better, to say more. So he wrote a 1000-word 10-verse story in song without a chorus, in parts, that tell of a titular character’s encounter with a “brittle monster” inspired according to Eoghan, by a trip to Glendalough and a skull seen there.

Cunningham roped in his friends Villagers’ Conor O’Brien and Cathy Davey on the track, the former produced it and the latter plays the role of the goddess of the lake. It moves in sections, from a wandering, traipsing organ and guitar to piano chords to a bluesy stomper to riffed-country-rock.

Stylistically, Cunningham does veer too close to the enunciation of O’Brien in voice during the 11 minutes. It doesn’t void the considerable creative effort he put into the song, nay story. Read the lyrics and buy the song for €3 at Bandcamp.

See also, his Canoe Concert:

Posted on July 31st, 2014

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