Girl Band — The Talkies

The tyranny of genre-tagging stuffs Girl Band in a pigeonhole of 'noise rock'. The Talkies and its predecessor Holding Hands With Jamie are both, yes, noisy. But they're erratic and amorphous too, and draw in so many mismatched influences you'd get arthritis listing them out. Somehow, The Talkies transcends these influences. The tried-and-tested music pundit schtick (it's x meets y, but on crack/acid/speed) is left thumb-twiddling. If Pete Townsend is to be believed, and originality is now impossible, Girl Band fake it like no one else.

Performances across the board deploy force with admirable control. The album is substantive and restrained — more so than it first appears. Songs' form often assumes a slow build. Tension increases and sustains to a point of cacophonous release. This may happen a few too many times, but it more often gives the material legs than functioning as a crutch.

And deviations from this form are heightened by their brevity and scarcity. The album's few noodling act breaks entertain without disrupting its thudding momentum.

Now for the elephant in the room. Girl Band return, revived, after an extended period of inactivity. Poor health has prohibited gigging, postponed studio recording, and given rise to legends and infamy that dog frontman Dara Kiely. There is something worth remembering, particularly in the months following Daniel Johnston's death. Suffering obstructs the creation of art. Suffering paralyses the artist.

Some corners host a sociopathic misconception: outsider artists must suffer. When a band occupies discomforting spaces, we should not get the popcorn in for its self-annihilation. 'Could Kiely be this decade's Richey Edwards? Is he troubled enough?' This amounts to nothing but a cynical, indie-rock cover of paps snapping Britney's slaphead. But the joke's on the journos — The Talkies is the sound of a boundary-busting band in total control of their material. And it’s material that’ll deafen anyone to chatter that surrounds it.

Girl Band's new album 'The Talkies' is Out Now on Rough Trade Records, listen here: http://girlband.ffm.to/thetalkies Directed and produced by Bob Gallagher Featuring Bryan Quinn & MJ O'Sullivan Production Manager - Louise Murphy Director of Photography - Evan Barry Production Designer - Sinead O'Reilly Edited by - Kevin Herlihy at

The Talkies is available for purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Lorenzo Gómez Oviedo — Cielo

Cielo is a rapturous upward journey. In its treatment of death and ascension it takes notes from Eliane Radigue's seminal Trilogie De La Mort. Both works tug in movements so slow as to be near imperceptible. Both produce an illusory perennial tone; a note which feels singular but is in constant flux. When change is present it is gradual, even glacial. It serves the purpose of feigning changelessness.

Cielo may be passive and unshowy. But it offers much to be unpacked. Like a canvas painted one solid colour, it grants more the longer it is considered. Gómez Oviedo's rumbles, scrapes and drones both fill and offer space at the same time.

Drone can in its minimalism engender a wandering mind. Cielo, no exception, invites technical consideration in its quietest moments. Listeners may try to identify the sounds from which Cielo was manipulated into being. They may venture to guess the processes those sounds underwent. This springs not from disengagement but an attempt to apprehend the album's striking production. And it never swamps the emotive force of the album. Cielo balances between a contemplative mode and experiential, Dionysian bliss with ease.

Violin work from Valentina Spina dances over the surface of Gómez Oviedo's drones like notonecta glauca, a trill which fades airily in and out of the mix. Like so much of what works in Cielo, it's a tiny but vital element elevating the whole.

Drone is so often about balancing these elements — light but not bare, empty but not hollow. Removal or addition of the smallest element crumbles the tower. Cielo strikes a superb balance, looming high amongst its peers.

Cielo is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Pharmakon — Devour

Margaret Chardiet's adaptation of Pharmakon to a studio setting pits the project against itself. Lauded for live shows which crumble the audience/performer boundary, Chardiet seems an unlikely recording artist. Pharmakon presents as a project living under specific circumstances, in specific spaces. It's physical, confrontational, instinctual; all the irreplicable beauties unique to live music.

Though recorded in a different room and time, Devour proves brutal enough to invade one's spiritual space. Your headphones, or speakers, become the profaned stage. Chardiet the apparition, diluted in the inches above your skin, raises goosebumps with her ferocity.

Devour owes this to a shaken-up recording process, with each side of the album committed in a single take. Room is permitted for beautiful imperfections, and Chardiet remains whole, not chopped to bits in the edit. This contributes an organic flow to the album. Tracks nudge up so naturally it's near-impossible to listen to them in isolation. The album succeeds most as constructed, in one piece. Inescapable once met, it grips like a vice then lets you go.

The downside is that previous LPs’ scaffolding is bared, their fury rendered somehow clinical. But it was a wise decision to step back. Any more bombast than present on 2017's Contact could initiate collapse into self-parody. And an emphasis on variety over volume in Devour prevents Chardiet erupting over the windshield into a sonic dead end.

Devour renews hope for a project which, in less extraordinary and committed hands, would have long since expended itself. Chardiet reaffirms her talent with a forceful sonic ejection right into her fans' faces.

Devour is ready for consumption here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe