Latest news with #PoorCreature
RTÉ News
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Something for the Weekend: Alannah Thornburgh's cultural picks
Alannah Thornburgh is an award-winning instrumentalist and composer from the west of Ireland with a focus on traditional Irish harp. Alannah's music explores her family heritage, reimagining melodies from the Irish harping and American folk & jazz traditions. Alannah was awarded 'Best Folk Instrumentalist' at the 2025 RTÉ Folk Awards and she is the current Musician-In-Residence at Carnegie Library, Fingal County Council/Music is also a founding member of Alfi, a trio who combine traditional Irish and Appalachian music and song. In February 2025, Alannah released her acclaimed debut album Shapeshifter; this September, she performs as part of Tradition Now in the National Concert Hall We asked Alannah for her choice cultural picks... MUSIC I have been incessantly listening to Poor Creature's album All Smiles Tonight since its release at the start of July. I think Ruth Clinton (Poor Creature, Landless) is a genius (which she displays very impressively across many art forms!) Another album that I have on repeat is Double You - a collaborative album by two instrumental virtuosos Aoife Ní Bhriain & Catrin Finch. FILM My go-to films are anything silly and light-hearted (Bullet Train and Detective Pikachu are coming to mind as I write this). I have a curiosity for thrillers and horror films (especially from a soundtrack/soundscape point of view) but truthfully I am too much of a wimp to watch either genre (the twist at the end of Fight Club was so intense for me that I fainted!) BOOK I really enjoyed Donal Ryan's collection of short stories A Slanting of the Sun. I absolutely adore Eithne Massey's The Turning of the Year: Lore and Legends of the Irish Seasons, a book that I return to often for inspiration. Manchán Magan recently announced that he will be releasing a new book in September Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun) which I will definitely be pre-ordering (his book Wolf-Men and Water Hounds is another favourite of mine). PLAY I saw Louise O'Neill's masterpiece Asking for It in the Gaiety Theatre a number of years ago - a truly harrowing but moving piece of work. I was fortunate enough to compose and perform some music for the RTÉ radio play Clarity at Last written by the immensely talented Charlie McGuinness (due for broadcast in late 2025, I believe). TV I was hooked on Severance this year, both from a storyline and musical point of view (the use of a theremin in Season 2 was just perfect). I am also a big fan of The Bear, and I have been meaning to rewatch Desperate Housewives since becoming obsessed with Kyle MacLachlan's Instagram content. GIG I have been very lucky to see Fionn Regan perform live twice already this year (in The Ambassador Theatre and at Night & Day Festival). I will be heading to All Together Now in a couple of weeks and I am ecstatic about seeing Fontaines DC, CMAT, Wet Leg and Bricknasty live. ART My favourite artist is Conor Campbell, the Limerick-born colour-blind artist whose work is so intricately beautiful and unique. Conor painted the artwork for my album Shapeshifter, and I am looking forward to celebrating his work at Tradition Now in the National Concert Hall on Thursday 25th September (alongside Diarmuid Mac Gloinn, Gareth Quinn Redmond and Junior Brother). TECH My partner Alex is developing a memory retention app as part of his Masters in Design Innovation and I have been a (hopefully supportive) guinea pig during the testing process! THE NEXT BIG THING... Shamrock Showband! The lads (Conor McAuley & Jamie Bishop) are two great friends of mine and have recently released their debut (self-titled) album. Check them out!
RTÉ News
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
10 great Irish albums you might have missed so far in 2025
The Irish music scene continues to flourish, and it's a beautiful thing to see some of our biggest acts - from Fontaines DC, to Hozier, to CMAT, to Kneecap - making such a huge impact on the global stage. That said, in the mad rush to proclaim the Next Big Thing, it can be all too easy to overlook the plethora of wonderful bands and artists releasing albums, who might not have a big profile or a label's PR department to push their work out to the masses. Considering we're past the halfway mark of the year, here are ten Irish albums that may have escaped your attention in 2025… 1. George Houston - TODC (The Original Death Card) Having spent part of 2024 supporting Paul Weller on his North American tour, this young Donegal musician decamped to Weller's Black Barn studio to record his fourth album. Interwoven with themes of tarot, TODC is a record that blazes with incandescent fury at the Catholic Church on the title track, yet also explores the more vulnerable aspects of growing up within the LGBT community in rural Ireland (Drag Queen). Houston deals with big topics, but as seen on his recent appearance on Later… with Jools Holland, he has the charisma and presence to draw you into his world. 2. M(h)aol - Something Soft Their 2023 debut Attachment Styles made quite a statement: this Dublin trio came out of the traps all guns blazing with a record that was uncompromising as it was brashly experimental. Their punky ethos continues apace with another collection of tense, nervy songs that tackle everything from animal welfare to consumerism. These are short, sharp blasts of propulsive punk, tinged with both fuzzy discordance and deep grooves. 3. Poor Creature - All Smiles Tonight The latest Irish act to be signed to Rough Trade's River Lea imprint is this supergroup of-sorts, comprising Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody (Lankum) and Ruth Clinton (Landless). Produced by John 'Spud' Murphy (Lankum/Oxn), Poor Creature's incursions into trad, folk and bluegrass are astonishing at times, eliciting comparisons to Cocteau Twins and even covering a Ray Lynam and Philomena Begley song for good measure. Whoever would've thought, etc… 4. Kean Kavanagh - The County Star You may have already seen comedian Peter McGann's memorable turn in the video for Kavanagh's single The Whistle; the good news is that the rest of the Portlaoise native's debut album is as good as that song suggests. This is a seriously accomplished record that sticks to its creative vision from start to finish, drawing in influences from country music, soul, indie and pop. Songs like Melting and Never are straight out of Beck's songbook, while A Country Song plunders from 1980s heartland rock. Throughout it all, Kavanagh's lyric sheet never strays far from his midlands hometown, as heard on 45s. 5. Paddy Hanna - Oylegate A long-term fixture on Ireland's indie and DIY scene, Dubliner Hanna has forged an impressive solo career after years in and out of bands like Grand Pocket Orchestra, Skelocrats and Autre Monde. His fifth album, named for a small village in Wexford and produced once again by Gilla Band's Daniel Fox, has all of Hanna's songwriting quirks - from the soft synthy throb of Harry Dean, to the loungey Caterpillar Wine and the clipped, XTC-esque Oylegate Station. 6. Curtisy - Beauty in the Beast He made quite a big impression with 2024's What Was the Question, which was nominated for the Choice Music Prize; Tallaght rapper Gavin Curtis, aka Curtisy, is a breath of fresh air on the Irish hip-hop scene. His mixtape with producer hikii showcases the best of his creativity, as he gets ultra-vulnerable on songs like W!, which sees him reflect upon his relationship with booze, and the title track which delves into the issue of addiction. It's thoughtful and thought-provoking fare, delivered in his idiosyncratic laidback style and infused with a healthy streak of humour. 7. Maria Somerville - Luster It seems criminal that such a superb album could possibly be overlooked, so don't let Maria Somerville's stunning work fall between the cracks of 2025. The Galway native signed to the prestigious 4AD label for Luster, a record heavily influenced by her native Connemara. You can well imagine gazing out onto a misty lough as the breathy Corrib or the propulsive, dream-like reverberations of Garden play over headphones. This is a finely-tuned, evocative collection. 8. Skinner - New Wave Vaudeville Skinner is the project of the Dublin-based multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer Aaron Corcoran who has been inspired by the New York no-wave scene in the late '70s/early '80s. On his debut album, Corcoran draws in influences from the likes of The B52s, The Rapture and even Pixies, all filtered through an Irish art-rock lens (there's even a song called Tell My Ma.) An enjoyably diverse mix of sounds - plus added saxophone, for good measure. 9. Bren Berry - In Hope Our Stars Align You may know Berry from his former guise as frontman of '90s alt-rock band Revelino, who released three albums during their seven-year tenure. It's taken until now for the Dubliner to go solo - but as this beautifully-crafted record proves, it's better late than never. Berry's odes to the simple pleasures of life - family, music, love - are funnelled into songs like Beautiful Losers, the slouchy soulfulness of We Have it All and the gently sweeping orchestration of Winter Song, while his experience in both the music business and life itself gives both character and depth to this collection. 10. Alanna Thornburgh - Shapeshifter We all know that Irish folk and trad is undergoing a major renaissance, but this album may have flown under many people's radars. Inspired by Irish fairy folklore and mythology, Mayo artist Alannah Thornburgh collected stories from a variety of historians, storytellers and locals; their tales are woven through this striking, mostly instrumental album, many of its songs composed on harp. An album that leans into the traditional side rather than the experimental, it's well worth a listen.
The Guardian
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight review
The latest gorgeous release from the fecund Irish folk scene doesn't begin with bassy dread in the Lankum mode, but a mood of gentle, haunting psychedelia. Adieu Lovely Erin starts by evoking Broadcast swirling around a maypole; then it's as if Cocteau Twins had been transported to a traditional music session. Its sweet, high female vocals also evoke the improvisations of sean-nós singing, while simmering, krautrock-like drums build drama. Poor Creature comprises three musicians expert in heightening and managing atmosphere: Landless's Ruth Clinton, Lankum's Cormac MacDiarmada plus live Lankum drummer John Dermody. Their debut album steeps cowboy songs, Irish ballads, bluegrass and other traditional songs in a misty, playful lightness that somehow also carries an eerie power. Bury Me Not is a 19th-century American song about a dying sailor desperate not to be buried at sea, and Clinton delivers its lamenting lyrics with a bright, shining innocence. MacDiarmada leads Lorene, a rolling, country ballad by Alabama duo the Louvin Brothers, with a similarly soft, brooding magic. Singing as a boy desperate for a letter from his beloved, despite clearly knowing he's being ghosted, the song's melancholy slowly rises as voice and guitar mesh together. Preprogrammed beats from a Hohner Organetta (a mid-century table-top organ), the wails of an Otamatone (a 21st-century Japanese synthesiser, shaped like a musical quaver) and a theremin add childlike, hauntological flavours to much of this music. Meat and muscle are also built into Hicks' Farewell, a Doc Watson song fed through a sturdy wall of shoegaze, and propulsive highlight, The Whole Town Knows. Within Clinton and MacDiarmada's dense harmonies, Dermody's drums and the track's cacophonous final minutes, you sense folk rocketing somewhere poppy, wild and new. A folk duo who also work in cabaret, performance, and installation art, Lunatraktors collect together six years of collaborative work on their new compilation, Quilting Points: Invitations and Open Calls 2019-2025 (self-released). A loud mix of salvaged songs, archival fragments, chaos and energetic ideas, its most intriguing tracks are the Korg-propelled 'Oss Girls, inspired by the Padstow May Day song, and The Truth of Eanswythe's Bones, a twisted choral epic inspired by the discovery of a skeleton of a 7th-century saint. Clàrsach (Celtic harp) player Grace Stewart-Skinner's Auchies Spikkin' Auchie (self-released) is a moving, textured exploration of the stories and dialect of her north-east Highlands harbour village, Avoch, mixing her playing with field-recorded conversations, fiddle, double bass and drums. Toby Hay's gorgeous New Music for the 6 String Guitar (The State51 Conspiracy) also further confirms him as a warm, 21st-century heir to the string-bending genius of John Fahey.
The Guardian
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight review
The latest gorgeous release from the fecund Irish folk scene doesn't begin with bassy dread in the Lankum mode, but a mood of gentle, haunting psychedelia. Adieu Lovely Erin starts by evoking Broadcast swirling around a maypole; then it's as if Cocteau Twins had been transported to a traditional music session. Its sweet, high female vocals also evoke the improvisations of sean-nós singing, while simmering, krautrock-like drums build drama. Poor Creature comprises three musicians expert in heightening and managing atmosphere: Landless's Ruth Clinton, Lankum's Cormac MacDiarmada plus live Lankum drummer John Dermody. Their debut album steeps cowboy songs, Irish ballads, bluegrass and other traditional songs in a misty, playful lightness that somehow also carries an eerie power. Bury Me Not is a 19th-century American song about a dying sailor desperate not to be buried at sea, and Clinton delivers its lamenting lyrics with a bright, shining innocence. MacDiarmada leads Lorene, a rolling, country ballad by Alabama duo the Louvin Brothers, with a similarly soft, brooding magic. Singing as a boy desperate for a letter from his beloved, despite clearly knowing he's being ghosted, the song's melancholy slowly rises as voice and guitar mesh together. Preprogrammed beats from a Hohner Organetta (a mid-century table-top organ), the wails of an Otamatone (a 21st-century Japanese synthesiser, shaped like a musical quaver) and a theremin add childlike, hauntological flavours to much of this music. Meat and muscle are also built into Hicks' Farewell, a Doc Watson song fed through a sturdy wall of shoegaze, and propulsive highlight, The Whole Town Knows. Within Clinton and MacDiarmada's dense harmonies, Dermody's drums and the track's cacophonous final minutes, you sense folk rocketing somewhere poppy, wild and new. A folk duo who also work in cabaret, performance, and installation art, Lunatraktors collect together six years of collaborative work on their new compilation, Quilting Points: Invitations and Open Calls 2019-2025 (self-released). A loud mix of salvaged songs, archival fragments, chaos and energetic ideas, its most intriguing tracks are the Korg-propelled 'Oss Girls, inspired by the Padstow May Day song, and The Truth of Eanswythe's Bones, a twisted choral epic inspired by the discovery of a skeleton of a 7th-century saint. Clàrsach (Celtic harp) player Grace Stewart-Skinner's Auchies Spikkin' Auchie (self-released) is a moving, textured exploration of the stories and dialect of her north-east Highlands harbour village, Avoch, mixing her playing with field-recorded conversations, fiddle, double bass and drums. Toby Hay's gorgeous New Music for the 6 String Guitar (The State51 Conspiracy) also further confirms him as a warm, 21st-century heir to the string-bending genius of John Fahey.
Irish Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
New Irish albums reviewed: Sons of Southern Ulster, Poor Creature, Darragh Morgan, The Swell Season and California Irish
Sons of Southern Ulster: Through the Bridewell Gate (SOSU) ★★★★☆ Through the Bridewell Gate by Sons of Southern Ulster The malcontents of Co Cavan resurface with the aim of once again visualising young dreams in middle age. Three albums in (and 10 years from their formation), Sons of Southern Ulster can safely lay claim to be as authentically Irish post-punk as any of the current native crop touting a similar validity. Sprechgesang songs such as Billyhill Hall, Royal Breffni, and the especially lyrical To the New World and Back ('I heard the voice of Joe Dolan – 'make me an island,' he cried'), place mainstays David Meagher and Justin Kelly in a league and a psycho-geographic place of their own. Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight (River Lea Records) ★★★★★ All Smiles Tonight by Poor Creature Cormac MacDiarmada , John Dermody, and Ruth Clinton may have their limbs in other contemporary experimental folk bands ( Lankum , Landless), but their eyes remain firmly focused on recalibrating songs from many years past and adding unexpected sonic twists and turns without making you reach for the smelling salts. Psyche-folk might be the applicable category or genre, but there's something else filtering through on multilayered tracks such as Willie O, Bury Me Not, Adieu Lovely Eireann and Hick's Farewell. Think more kosmische variations of Cocteau Twins, Enya and several spectral others, imbued with sean-nós, drone, and artists such as Sandy Paton, Jean Ritchie, and Karen Dalton. Producer John 'Spud' Murphy sets the controls for the dark heart of the sun, while Clinton (whose father, incidentally, was once a member of Ireland's finest R&B band, The Rhythm Kings) delivers vocal shivers and delights in equal measure. Definite Album of the Year vibrations from this one. Darragh Morgan: For Violin and Electronics Vol II (Diatribe Records) ★★☆☆☆ Cover of For Violin and Electronics Vol II by Darragh Morgan New music violinist Darragh Morgan has quite the professional career, performing not only with numerous contemporary music groups (including Ensemble Modern, Icebreaker and London Sinfonietta) but also with The Divine Comedy, the Spice Girls and Sigur Ros. The sequel to his 2017 album showcases examples of what could be, for some, taxing. There are shades of that throughout the 10 minutes of Zack Browning's Sole Injection (think repetitive hiccups with occasional stabs of police car alarms). Conversely, in Scanner's A Cantegral Segment, Morgan's playing is peak elegance, but the album's longueurs far outweigh the best moments. The Swell Season: Forward (Masterkey Sounds) ★★★★☆ Forward by The Swell Season Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova reunite as The Swell Season for their first album in 16 years, and to say the results are equal parts bittersweet, heartwarming and wise is a piercing understatement. The pair's personal history is (presumably) well enough known to view Forward as a story-driven sequence of confessional regret and acceptance. Whatever the truth, there's no denying the empathy and common threads that connect not just the songwriters but also their folksy songs. Listen to People We Used to Be, Stuck in Reverse, I Leave Everything to You and A Little Sugar without your eyes brimming, and you have a heart of stone. READ MORE California Irish: The Mountains Are My Friends (7Hz Productions) ★★★☆☆ The Mountains Are My Friends by California Irish From bullish hard rock to harmonic folk is a turn we didn't expect Belfast's Cormac Neeson to take, but the former frontman of The Answer has taken to the sensibilities of Laurel Canyon like the proverbial duck to water. Gathering a bunch of musicians with similar influences, the mood enveloping the debut album by California Irish is, says Neeson, 'the opposite of boring AI-generated, no-soul perfection'. There is throughout, then, not only genuine creative instinct but also the kind of sonic warmth that comes only from musicians in a room taking cues and empathetic hints from each other.
