state's faces of 2010 special

State.ie

february 2010

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Ireland’s musIc payload

specialPatrick Kelleher Two Door Cinema ClubCatscarsFuneral SuitsVengeance And The Panther QueenI Am The CosmosYes CadetsTwinkranesJoggingO EmperorSleep ThievesBitches With WolvesWoundsCarol Keogh8BallNakatomi TowersHalvesJohn, Shelly and the CreaturesWe Cut CornersTake The Money And Run

faces of 2010

pat r Ic k k e l l e h e r p ho t o gr a p h e d for stat e b y r Ic h a r d gI l l Iga n

faces of two thousand and tenState

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Last year we brought you the likes of Villagers, heathers, Bats, adebesi shank and the ambience affair in our pick of 2009’s best new bands, which we feel sets the bar pretty high. over the next pages we’ll be offering you our pick of the brightest hopes for 2010, taking all of electronica, americana, hardcore, pop, techno and more – proving yet again that the Irish underground is capable of throwing up gem after gem. discover, enjoy, support.

State’s Faces of


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Pat r i c kk e l l e h e r~ The term ‘electro-folk’ is a contradiction in itself and has been applied all-too-readily to any act with the temerity to mix acoustic guitars and synthesizers. Patrick Kelleher is one artist who has been placed in this category by some but, to be honest, that’s an insult to him: Kelleher’s speciality lies in delivering deceptively simple, haunting melodies lying somewhere between Dead Can Dance and Moby’s darker work. Top that off with some simply wonderful crooned lyrics and you have an irresistible combination. His debut album You Look Cold has been rightly heaped with praise and is to be followed by a remix album, due for release next month.

Words by P a t r i c k c o n b o y

Photography by r i c h a r d G i l l i G a n


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two d o o rc i n e m a c l u b~Of all the names being bandied around at the moment as ‘ones to watch’ for 2010, one that keeps cropping up is Two Door Cinema Club. Therefore, State deemed it vital to meet up with the three band members for a chat a few hours before their debut headline gig in Dublin’s Crawdaddy venue in December. The core members – bassist Kevin Baird, vocalist/guitarist Alex Trimble and guitarist Sam Halliday – are three Bangor/Donaghadee boys who are barely out of secondary school and already signed to established French label Kitsuné and set to release their debut album, Tourist History, on March 1.

Words by a o i f e b a r r y



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The band formed when the guys were in their teens, with frontman Alex being the chief songwriter. Named after Sam misheard the name of a local ‘Tudor Cinema Club’, they released their first single ‘I Can Talk’, in December and are about to embark on a year of touring in support of Tourist History.

The album, which is crammed full of electro-heavy indie songs that are “about our progression as a band and experiences that we’ve been through together” (Alex), will appeal to fans of Passion Pit, Phoenix and Foals, and certainly justifies their placement in the recent BBC Sound of 2010 poll. Although they didn’t scoop the top spot, it was proof that the future is bright for these young men, who will release their latest single, ‘Undercover Mar-tyn’, on February 22.

Here, they tell State about how far they’ve come – from travelling around the country in a dirty old van that stank of dog (having been previously owned by a pet grooming business) – “All of us up the front, crushed in and no sleep or anything,” as Alex puts it – to signing autographs for screaming Japanese teenagers.

How does it feel to have the band doing so well – before you’ve even released your debut album?Kevin: “It’s been really slow, which is good, I think. We haven’t had to be thrown into anything, we just work away. I guess some people ask us, they look at what we’re doing and they say, ‘Oh is it just crazy, does it blow your mind, is it mental?’.And it’s not really, it’s just slowly built up to it, so I think it’s a really nice way of doing it.”

Can you take us back to the beginning – where did you all meet? Alex: “We met when we were about 15, in grammar school, and I guess a couple of months from when we started hanging out, we started playing to-gether. We spent two weeks of a summer in Sam’s garage and just started to play really bad teen rock music together. That continued for about a year or so and when that ended, the drummer that played with us left the band that we were in, but the three of us still wanted to continue doing what we were doing. By that stage, we’d kind of grown up a bit, I guess, and we wanted to make a different kind of music that was more suited to us and more suited to other people as well.

“We were listening to so many other types of music and at that stage we were just confining ourselves to this one genre and we wanted to broaden that a little. So with this band, we don’t like to confine ourselves to anything, especially since we have the laptop and we can experiment and do things like that. We can play lots of different types of music if we want to. That started two years ago and since then it’s just been writing and recording and playing shows.”

Sam: “We were pretty lucky in the sense that once we left school over that summer between our last year in school and whenever you’re supposed to go to university, we were lucky in that we had sorted out a booking agent so we had stuff lined up for September so we weren’t sitting about too long. After that, we met a few managers and got that pinned down.”

What kind of music were you all listening to at that time?Alex: “The stuff that we started listening to back then was stuff that we listen to today, it’s just that we listen to so much more. I guess we kind of bonded over one band – that was Biffy Clyro. All three of us were mental for that band and that was the first show all three of us went to together: we went to see them in Belfast.”

Kevin: “We were big fans of At The Drive-In as well.”

Alex: “And Six Star Hotel, from Belfast.”

Kevin: “We basically tried to rip At The Drive-In off for a year and a half and it didn’t go anywhere and we didn’t really enjoy it.”

You were saying that you don’t like to confine yourself to one sound. Is that important in the sense that you don’t want to get pigeonholed?Kevin: “I don’t think it’s a conscious thing so much, it’s more like whatever works at the time just gets used.”

Alex: “We’ll only let a song come to fruition if it comes naturally and it means not trying to steer it in a certain direction. So we just write songs that feel right to us.”

What’s the songwriting process – has it changed over the years? Alex: “It’s all different. It’s different every time. It can start from any place and it can end up in any place. You know, all three of us are all involved in it. But it’s different every time.”

You had a period where you were without a drummer but now you have one. So what’s the difference?Kevin: “He’s only there for just live gigs, so we kind of see it that we always want to improve on when we play live and I think the first step for most bands is a lighting rig, and then for us we had an extra step which was a drummer. It’s kind of filling in a bit of a visual and a sound void as well that we had, just giving a bit of depth to the sound, I guess. I think visually it seems much more deep. You can’t beat the live sound when you have a live drummer.”

Alex: “Just having a live drummer on stage, there was just an extra energy and presence there as well.”

Kevin: “There was just a bit of a void when there was just three of us at the front.”

Alex: “I think that’s all fair and well if you are a straight-up electro band, and I’ve seen a lot of people doing that these days. I think for us personally, there is electro in there but we play a variety of different pop and indie and stuff as well and there is a lot guitars involved and I think it needed something to boost it a little.”

Kevin: “And we still run the laptop live.”

What about Tourist History – what can people expect? Alex: “We’re really proud of the way it’s come out. It’s our first record, so we’ve put everything we had into it to make sure everything was as good as it could be and it came out better than we expected.”

Kevin: “I guess it’s a really nice position to be in where obviously we want loads of people to like it, but for us we love it, so we’re happy already ’cos all the tracks on it we love and would listen to.”

Did you find it hard to let go of it? Was there a moment where you had to say ‘it’s all done’? Sam: “We kind of knew where all the songs were going before we went in, we were lucky in the sense that we had a lot of time before to work on things like that. We just really hit it off with the producer, Elliot James [who has worked with Bloc Party and Noah and the Whale]. We were just really on the same page, musically.”

Kevin: “We kept it free and open, so if there were ideas and if they didn’t work, then they didn’t work.”

Sam: “We were all pretty dead set on where we wanted the songs to end up. We’d done a lot of pre-production and we’d made demos of every single song and worked on them and developed them. When we were writing, we were trying to pick our best tracks we’d had since we started the band, because that’s an option that we had: we can just pick any song we’d written in the past because we hadn’t made a record before. So I think by the time we came to go into the studio, everything fell into place and we knew what we were going to do.”


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So how important is it to be on the same wavelength as the producer?Kevin: “I feel that with a producer, if they really get what you’re doing and you see eye-to-eye on that stuff, it gives him a lot more focus and enjoyment as well, and as a result, he’s more interested in it.”

Alex: “The funny thing was the first time we met the producer was over the phone and he was just spinning all these ideas that we just didn’t like and we didn’t agree with. And we thought ‘Alright, well we’ll give him another chance and we’ll meet him for a drink’. And he just said: ‘I’m really sorry, I’ve actually listened to your music now and I understand what you’re doing and I love it and I know where to go with it!’”

Is the aesthetic of the band – the videos, the album covers – something you care hugely about, something you have a particular vision for?Alex: “I don’t think it’s something we want to box into a certain look. We just like things we like, pretty much. You know if we’re happy and we think it suits us. If we think it fits with what we’re doing, then we’re happy.” Sam: “Our label’s obviously based in Paris so I think there’s a lot of French influence from them. They’re really involved in producing the music video and our artwork and they love to be involved in what they do and they intro-duced people to us.”

Alex: “It just so happens that we love French art and fashion, so it kind of works for us because it’s something that we’re into at the same time.”

Are they really helpful when it comes to that kind of thing, like making videos? Alex: “They’re just really passionate about everything.”

Kevin: “They don’t just go ‘here’s some music, go shoot a music video, and we’ll tell you if we like it at the end’. It’s like, ‘We have this idea, we’re think-ing about using these guys’.”

The video for your current single ‘I Can Talk’ is very slick – it’s not often you come across bands that haven’t released an album yet and have a video like that.Sam: “We were shocked too when we rocked up to this chateau in Paris and there were production vans and stuff.”

Kevin: “Catering…”

Alex: “We just arrived and they were like, ‘you’re in make-up in five minutes, wardrobe’s upstairs and catering is over there’. We were like, ‘Holy shit!’”

Kevin: “We just seemed so uncool, we were like [mimes taking photos].”

Sam: “Running about taking photos!”

That must be mad – do you ever have moments where you wonder how you got from practising in the garage to being in France filming a video?Sam: “More and more these days.”

Kevin: “Like I said before, it’s kind of [happening] slowly: up until June, we were still practicing above Alex’s garage.”

Alex: “It is becoming more of a progression but still when stuff happens you stand there and go, ‘Holy shit, did that just happen?’”

Sam: “I think it’ll be a real shock when we get the album out and there’s people there [at the gigs], hopefully.”

And you’re going on tour with Phoenix in March?Alex: “We’re huge fans of Phoenix, so it’s going to be really cool. We’re really excited.”

How does it feel to be supporting a band that big – are there ever nerves? There is that sense that people are just waiting to see the headline act – how do you deal with that? Sam: “I think it makes it more relaxing. They’re not expecting anything from you so I think that way it works out better a lot of the time. If they enjoy you, it’s unexpected enjoyment.”

Alex: “It’s always great if one or two people come up after the show and say they enjoy it: we’re not playing to our audience so we’re lucky to get other fans out of it. And yeah, we’ve done a lot of support slots so we’re used to that vibe, so it is really nice when you get people who come up afterwards and ask you for a CD or a picture or something.”

Sam: “We’re a bit more pressured by the fact the band we’re supporting might watch us, like ‘what are they going to think?’”

What is the local scene in Belfast like?Alex: “There are loads of bands in Belfast since we started. Like I said, when we were starting off we were listening to Six Star Hotel, who were a big inspiration to us when we were starting our band. As we became part of the scene, we became friends with a lot of the bands that played and it became a really friendly scene, everyone helping each other out. We kind of grew up in that scene in a way, which was a really nice thing to do. Still today there are loads of bands that are still playing.”

What have been your most memorable gigs this year? Alex: “Japan was awesome. We played the show and it was like everyone was hanging on your every word. You play gigs here and even in Europe and there’s people watching you but there’s also people chatting and stuff, but in Japan, everyone just all fills in and they all watch you and it’s really nice. Afterwards we did this signing thing which we never did [before], with people queue up to get your autographs and stuff, which was crazy.”

Sam: “Loads of awkward hugs over a table, a pat on the back! A couple of fans even brought us presents. It was mad because someone came up with one of our first EPs which we only sold at gigs in Belfast.”

Alex: “It was awkward, because at the end we had to walk away, but every-one just clapped. We were all just kind of like, ‘Uh…’. It never happened to us before, we had no idea what to do.”

Two Door Cinema Club play The Shockwaves NME Awards Tour with The Maccabees and the Funeral Suits at The Academy on February 21.

~The funny thing was the first time we met the

producer was over the phone and he was just spinning all these ideas that we just didn’t

like and we didn’t agree with. And we thought “Alright, well we’ll give him another chance and

we’ll meet him for a drink.” And he just said: “I’m really sorry, I’ve actually listened to your music now and I understand what you’re doing and I

love it and I know where to go with it.

~


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catscarsCatscars’ music is the sort not conceived in the recording studio but in the laboratory of some evil, demented scientist. Inspired by John Carpenter, Vangelis and a healthy dose of ’80s New Wave, Robyn Bromfield – alias Catscars – has spent the past year nurturing a sound full of cinematic tension, with a dark, sinister soul at its core. And with a live show that includes footage from classic sci-fi and horror movies providing the narrative in place of lyrics, the Catscars experience will leave you looking over your shoulder with uneasiness.


Photography by c a i t f a h e y

FuneralsuitsWhen Funeral Suits take their place on the NME Shockwaves tour Dublin show next month it’ll be confirmation that the Dublin/Limerick trio have moved on apace in the short time since the release of their Eye Spy EP in May. Keeping the new material coming ever since, without a drop in quality, their raucous, free wheeling combination of guitars, drums and synths has brought them high profile supports beyond their tender years and the attention of uber producer Stephen Street, at the helm for this year’s debut album.



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V e n g e a n c e a n d t h ePa n t h e r Q u e e n~The sound of Britney singing The Misfits, The Birthday Party covering The Carpenters or Bad Brains playing Madonna songs remixed by Daft Punk. That, according to Vengeance and the Panther Queen, is what Vengeance and the Panther Queen sound like. Fronted by the provocative figure of Tara McCormack and featuring various members of Republic of Loose (including Mick Pyro on guitar), the band’s mix of styles and dark imagery has whetted appetites for the year ahead.

Words by P h i l U d e l l

Photography by l o r e a n a r U s h e

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i amthecosmos

I Am The Cosmos is unique amongst our Faces of 2010 in that he has yet to make his live debut. Locked away in his home studio, the Dublin-based artist has spent the last year assembling a growing collection of wonderfully dreamy electronic soundscapes and posting them to his MySpace profile. From this lone outlet, he has drawn the attention of influential music critics and bloggers, even landing a spot on the Fresh Air Festival hosted by Donal Dineen on Today FM. In the coming months, he plans on adding vocals to these instrumental tracks and making his entrance into the live arena. No doubt, record releases will follow soon after.


Yescadets

Northern Irish music guru Rigsy has deemed Yes Cadets to be the most exciting new band in the country and, to be honest, we wouldn’t argue with him when it comes to matters north of the border.

Formed in Belfast in 2008, having bonded over a mutual love of all things Canadian, independent and musical, this four piece made an immediate impression with the release of the Yes Cadets EP, which managed to sound both confident and expansive over its five tracks. Eclecticism runs through their veins and the band pull dance-punk, gigantic basslines, cascading electro, indie-pop harmonies, glockenspiel and raucous guitar into their unique mix. We’re looking forward to hearing much, much more.

Photography by n i a l l b y r n e


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tw i n k r a n e s~At a time when more and more Irish bands find themselves releasing their own music, one of our own getting signed to an international label is something to celebrate. When it’s influential UK outfit Twisted Nerve we really should sit up and take notice. The Twinkranes tell us how it all came about.

Words by d a r r a G h M c c a U s l a n d


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State meets Anto and Ray from Twinkranes in the library bar of Dublin’s Central Hotel. It’s an old-fashioned, carpety sort of place, full of high-backed chairs, table lamps, and bookcases. It somehow doesn’t feel like the most appropriate place to meet members of a band who describe themselves as a “psychedelic power trio specialising in zone-out progressive pop-musik”. Surely, we should be meeting these lads in the basement of a disused tinned meat factory in East Berlin.

At least there’s no difficulty in picking them out from the tourists and suits who have braved the most miserable night of the year for a drink in town. Anto, the group’s drummer and vocalist, stands out in particular with his shining blonde mop, spirit-level straight fringe, and angular looks. If we were a betting magazine who didn’t know who he was, we’d lay a safe tenner on him being in a band. We’d also have a punt on him being Scandinavian or German with those features, and would definitely pull a double-take if we heard him talk in the friendly northside accent with which he introduces himself. He certainly looks the part for a guy in a band who play “popmusik”, or as he later puts it “psychedelia – oddball sounds with a pop sensibility”.

It’s as good a description as any for Twinkranes mercurial debut album, Spektrumtheatresnakes, a dark quicksilver rush of a record that welds the weirdest bits of your druggy uncle’s far-out vinyl collection to seething rhythms that rework but never flat-out appropriate elements of motorik and Kosmiche Krautrock. With song-titles like ‘The Market Of The Bizarre’ and ‘High Tekk Train Wreck’, Spektrumtheatresnakes wears its oddness like a t-shirt that says ‘Dorothy, we’re a long way from singer-songwriter night in Doyle’s’. Yet, despite the full-on psychedelic weirdness, the album is never inaccessible, a quality which may well have piqued the interest of Twisted Nerve’s Andy Votel who signed the band (the inlay of their album rather sty-listically reads that it was recorded over three days “at the request of Andy Votel”, making him sound like some sort of Warholian patron and Twink-ranes a mysterious, possibly dangerous band that tickled his fancy).

Ray (synths and production) explains how the signing came about. “We played a night down in Kennedy’s. Some friends of ours used to run a night called ‘Maximum Joy’ there. We played the Christmas party and they had Andy Votel over to DJ. He saw us and seemed to buzz off the show. It was a great night, a great gig.”

“He asked us when we were next playing and came and checked us out

with the intention of picking us up and doing a record with us, and that’s what led to the album being recorded,” adds Anto. “I think he thought that what we were doing fitted in with the Twisted Nerve aesthetic. They deal in psychedelia, oddball grooves, like crazy left-of-centre bands that you’ve never heard of. So we’re lucky in that what we’re doing fits with what they do.”

It seems that Twisted Nerve is the perfect home for Twinkranes, and an ideal network (“a spidery network” as Anto describes it) for getting their sound out to people who appreciate that sort of thing, people such as journalists writing for NME, The Guardian and Mojo who have all given the album sterling reviews. After plugging away at the Dublin scene for five years, Anto and Ray seem under no illusions that it’s often the right connections with the right people who can suddenly afford you that sort of exposure. Indeed, they give the impression of feeling genuinely blessed to have been picked up by a label like Twisted Nerve. They are also excited by the opportunity it affords them to put more time into tricking about in the studio, and the chance to tour and meet all-time heroes such as Simeon from visionary sixties synth outfit Silver Apples who they supported in Dublin.

Anto explains that with Spektrumtheatresnakes it’s very much the live aspect that shaped the record: “When we went into the studio, a lot of it had already been developed live. What we recorded was pretty much a live set. Next year it would be great to spend some solid time in the studio, work on music that way. Also, they [Twisted Nerve] never dictate. We can pretty much work on what we want. I mean we’ve recorded an hour and a half of grooves and they are going to put that out on some library releases. They’re just mad for getting releases out really.”

If an album as fine as Spektrumtheatresnakes is the product of three days’ studio time for Twinkranes, then the prospect of them being let loose in a studio for an extended period is an exciting one.

In the meantime, they plan to tour the album and perhaps play a few festivals in Europe. So, if you end up mangled, lost, and zoning out at Primavera next summer while watching a pale drummer with an intense gaze hammering out relentless cosmic rhythms and singing about witches, throw him and his bandmates a psychedelic wave- sure it’s only Anto and the lads from Twinkranes.

~Andy Votel saw us and seemed to buzz off the show. I think he thought that what we were doing fitted in with the Twisted Nerve aesthetic. They deal in psychedelia, oddball grooves, like crazy left of centre bands that you’ve never heard of. So we’re lucky in that what we’re doing fits with what they do.

~

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J o g g i n g~

While Irish music has seen a good deal of subtlety, invention and multi-instrumentation, sometimes all you want is some very loud rock music. Say hello to Jogging, exactly the right band for such a moment.

Formed after the demise of The Coldspoon Conspiracy, they quickly found a spiritual home alongside Bats and Adebisi Shank on the Richter

Collective label, for whom they’ll release their debut album in the spring.



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oemPeror

“Why can’t all bands be this instantly lovable?” wondered State’s Johnnie Craig when he came across Waterford’s O Emperor at last October’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival. The band certainly stood out then and still do. Their dreamy sound owes much to the music of America, both past and present, joining the dots between The Band and The Flaming Lips. Debut single ‘Po’ certainly did the business for them on its release, leading them to headline the New Bands Stage at Oxegen. With their place already booked on the next series of RTE 2’s Other Voices, they head out this week on a UK and Irish tour that marks the start of what is sure to be a hectic year.


sleePthieVes

The trio who make up Sleep Thieves set out in 2008 to bridge the gap between off-the-wall indie music and dance-tinged electro. They emerged from their cluttered studio of keyboards, synths and laptops with a batch of songs that achieved their initial aim handsomely. Two singles and a growing portfolio of gigs have put them in a fine position to stake their claim over the next 12 months.



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bitcheswithwolVes~“I’ll start a riot, once I’ve fixed my lipstick”: meaningless nonsense perhaps, but in the hands of Bitches With Wolves, it’s nearer to a manifesto. Born in London, raised in Dublin, the band have benefited from the resurgence in the capital’s club scene – although they’re as far from your average grim dance night out as possible. Fronted by the flamboyant James O’Neill, the trio underpin their extroverted glamour with a genuine sense of musical adventure, as inspired by the sound of ’60s girl group pop as more darker influences. And if that means that O’Neill can strut his stuff in front of thousands of Fatboy Slim fans in a pair of hot pants, that’s fine by us.




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carolkeogh

If the name Carol Keogh sounds familiar to you, then there’s good reason why it should. An ever-present figure in Irish music since the mid-’90s, Keogh first came to light as the vocalist with critically-acclaimed Dublin band The Plague Monkeys before going on to form The Tycho Brahe with guitarist Donal O’Mahony. Since that group disbanded in 2005, she has busied herself by contributing vocals to recordings by acts as diverse as Autamata, The Dudley Corporation, Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club, Sharon Shannon and, well, you get the idea. It’s fair to say that the words “lazy” and “unmotivated” have no place in her vocabulary. More recently, Keogh has collaborated with Dunk Murphy (aka Sunken Foal) under the Natural History Museum moniker to create a mighty fine style of ethereal, minimalist electronica. Outside of this, she has also found space to focus on her own solo material for the first time.

Resolving to avoid fancy studio wizardry wherever possible, she has recruited a full backing band to play alongside her during recording sessions. The results are outstanding, full of delicately executed melodies, with Keogh’s unmistakable voice charged with warmth and emotion. She’s also been quite prolific. Not only is an EP nearing completion but work on her debut album – Mongrel City – is also at an advanced stage and is due for release later this year.


wounds

Few, if any, bands in Dublin’s perennially busy punk and hardcore scene have ever been as well-equipped to take it to the next level as Wounds are right now. Having already established a formidable reputation throughout Ireland and the UK for their explosive live sets, the five-piece will release their first EP – Dead Dead Fucking Dead – in February and critics on both sides of the Irish Sea are salivating in anticipation. The songs are crammed with addictive riffs and shout-out-loud choruses, all delivered with a fierceness that will leave you battered, bruised and hungry for more.


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8ball

It may seem strange to feature a band who have been around for six years as a name for the future but for 8Ball, 2010 feels very much like a fresh start. Having built up an admirable head of steam prior to the release of their debut album in 2006, matters rather fell apart thanks to an ill-advised record deal and a release that did little to capture their true spirit. Last year’s With All Your Friends album was far more like it, one of 2009’s most memorable domestic efforts. Tossing pop, dance, electronica and rock into one engaging mix, they’ve also shown an encouraging willingness to look for like-minded souls beyond these shores. Sometimes good things to happen to good people.


nakatomitowers

Their roots may lie in indie rock but it was a mutual love for house and electroclash that convinced Dave Frecknall and Julianne Shawe to form Nakatomi Towers. Taking the best of both worlds, they create music that’s pop-savvy and infectiously danceable. It’s these qualities that have landed them support slots for the likes of Little Boots and The XX –no mean feat, especially when you consider they’ve only been together seven months. And in addition to their own songs, they keep themselves busy remixing tracks for other artists and taking their barnstorming DJ sets to club nights throughout the country. They’re currently working on material for their first EP, which is due later this year.



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John, shellYandthecreatures

You may not realise it, but you’ve probably heard John, Shelly and the Creatures already; their song ‘Long May You Reign’ is featured in the current Discover Northern Ireland ad campaign. That tune is indicative of the knack they possess for writing instantly loveable music – a knack that has earned them widespread critical praise over the past 12 months and, more importantly, a growing legion of fans. The Belfast foursome recently completed work on their debut album, which is penciled in for a March release. They’ll also be undertaking a nationwide tour which kicks-off next month.


halVes

It was 2008 that we first featured Halves in the pages of State the magazine, since which they have been quietly readying themselves for the world at large. Well, as quietly as anyone working with a member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor can be. Basing themselves at Hotel2tango in Montreal, Efrim Menuck has been overseeing their debut album, due for release in March, and featuring a mixture of organic samples, strings, brass and choir, as well as guest vocalists Amy Millan (Stars/Broken Social Scene), Katie Kim & Phil Boughton (Subplots). Far from being an acquired taste, however, Halves topped the viewers choice poll for last year’s Other Voices.




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takethemoneYandrun

It was six months ago that State first stumbled across Take The Money And Run in their second home of the Spirit Store in Dundalk, eventually running out of winners of the Battle of the Bands that we found ourselves judging. Their reward was time in the venue’s Tumbleweed Studio, the results of which are due to see the light of day this spring in their shape of their debut EP. The even better news is that they’re branching out from their Blondie-influenced power pop origins to explore the delights of a more bipolar approach – including strings, pianos, flutes, cornets and even the odd banjo.


wecutcorners

State’s very own Alan O’Reilly was suitably impressed when he caught We Cut Corners supporting Joan as Policewoman last October. “These guys are definitely ones to watch,” he said at the time and now we’re making that statement official. Being a guitar/drums duo has inevitably lead to comparisons with The White Stripes, which may seem unfair on that basis alone. But if there’s one thing they do share with Jack and Meg, it’s the ability to write a catchy tune. Mix that up with all that’s good about Midlake and Bright Eyes, then add in a personality that’s all their own and you have the guts of something quite special.


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state's faces of 2010 special

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tenstate4pat r i c kk

o i f e b

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