CultureHUB - Issue 10 by CultureHUB Magazine

ISSUE 10

CULTURE

HUB

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Welcome to CultureHUB

CONTENTS

We are proud to announce that CultureHUB Magazine: Eclectic NI is a Finalist for two categories in the Irish Magazine Awards 2016 - ‘Best Design Team’ and ‘Best Consumer Magazine’.

4 •CultureHUB - Eclectic NI

From the team at CultureHUB,

6• Oliver Mears

Happy reading folks - Happy holidays - Happy new year!

ARTICLES

9• RUA - 135th Annual Exhibition 12• Neil Trelford - The Youth Club

Creative Director: Anna Wherrett Editor: Scott Boldt Cover Design & Layout: Anna Wherrett Assistant Designer: Monika Zygadlo Journalists: Melanie Brehaut, Ciara Conway, Stacy Fitzpatrick, Cara Gibney, John Patrick Higgins,

Stephen Maxwell, Tiarnán McCartney, Gerry McNally, Gemma McSherry, Conor O’Neill, Dearbhla Reynolds, Gerry Walton.

14 •Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts 16• Out to Lunch - Sean Kelly 18 • The Answer - Cormac Neeson 20• LunchBox Theatre 22 • Single Review 24 • Roman Lipczynski: Non-Stop 26 • Ciaran Lavery - Live at The MAC

Photo Credits - Front Cover: Tremaine Gregg Michael Barbour, Carrie Davenport, Marc Leach, Jack Rice, Robert Workman.

CultureHUB Magazine Ltd. Merrion Business Centre Office 6a, 58 Howard Street Belfast, BT1 6PJ Tel: 02895 43 4060 www.culturehubmagazine.co.uk info@culturehubmagazine.co.uk

28 • Belfast Walks - Declan Hill 30 • Visiting Artists 32• Album Review 34• Home Artists 36 • The 4 of Us - Telling the Story 38 • Lorcan McGrane - Scary Interview 40 • Scream for Me 42 • The Cultured Club - Fermenting a Change 44 • Eamann McCrystal - Interview 46 • Alan McKee - He Told CultureHUB 48 •Stephen Maxwell - No Guarantees

50• AER Music

or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical without permission of CultureHUB Magazine.

CULTURE

HUB

ECLECTIC NI

CultureHUB As we explore and discover the diversity of cultural expressions in NI, we are propelled to pause.

s the daylight has diminished and the last leaves languish, thoughts tend towards the temporal. CultureHUB now gazes over two years of discovering, showcasing and presenting a wide and diverse range of cultural expressions right across NI. We are firmly based in Belfast but have broadened and brandished our brand from Ballycastle to Ballymartin and from Ballywalter to Belcoo. This is the third issue since CultureHUB has expanded and become Eclectic NI and we are delighted by the feedback we have received; equally, we are impressed by the breadth, depth and diversity of the people who create the culture we convey.

We see culture both in the grand sense of ‘that which cultivates the mind and senses’ as well as in basic terms as ‘the way people do things around here’. Culture reflects our underlying beliefs and values, providing an insight into who we are and often pointing a way towards who we can become. Part of our mission is to connect readers to the vast and varied variety of cultural variations that all go into making up who we are. This issue is no different, packing a prodigious profusion of fascinating folks. You can read about Oliver Mears, the artistic director of Northern Ireland Opera for six years, who is leaving us to take up the most prestigious job in British opera as director of the Royal

Opera House, Covent Garden or you may wish to peruse the views of Lorcan McGrane on some of the cultural history of horror films. If you have never fermented food, find your way to the article on the Cultured Food Club and en route read interviews with authors Neil Trelford and Declan Hill, or with Ray Giffen at Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts or Mark Reid of AER Music. Speaking of music, there is always a heaping helping with our regular reviews and listings as well as pieces on the 4 Of Us, Eamonn McCrystal and The Answer, and our feature interview with 2016 Northern Ireland Music Prize winner Ciaran Lavery. You will get an insight into the Out to Lunch Festival with the

inside view from its director Sean Kelly or you might want to learn about LunchBox Theatre, both of which happen at The Black Box, Belfast. I purposely want to leave some things out so that you will discover them; however, you'll have to have a gander at our coverage of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts 135th Annual Exhibition in the Ulster Museum. Any interest in bird photography? How about Alan McKee? So much to read, so much to see and yes, thanks to our advertisers, it continues to be free. As you turn these pages, I should inform you that you are reading a magazine which has been nominated as a Finalist for not one, NOT one, but TWO awards for the Irish Magazine Awards 2016. One nomination is for the Best Design Team and the other is for Best Consumer Magazine. We will not know if we have won until after we have gone to print, so I thought I would milk the honour of being nominated just in case we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. Regardless, it is great to be recognised and it is a real credit to all our contributors (journalists and photographers) and especially to our illustrious and distinguished design team. They have designed with distinction, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to congratulate each and every one of them for their consistent and compelling creativity. Well done Anna.

Scott Boldt

Interview

Oliver Mears “The only deadly

sin in opera is it being boring”

n November Oliver Mears presented his final production, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with NI Opera before he takes up the prestigious position of artistic director at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. Oliver Mears has been director of NI Opera since its inception in 2010. Being presented with a blank slate meant coming up with a clear company identity and creating work that appeals widely. The fundamentals in starting afresh were apparent to Mears - an immediate and direct production style, the use of local talent, low ticket prices, and challenging the pre-conceptions of opera. His productions deliver deep dramatic complexities while reinforcing the idea that opera is for everyone to engage with. He has been an ambassador for opera in Northern Ireland, developed strong aesthetic values and cultivated a fundamental identity for NI Opera.

Why do you think the current public demand for contemporary opera on stage is so low? I think that the big reason is that since World War Two there was been a divergence between the kind of music the audience want to hear and the kind of music the composers are interested in composing. Audiences remain very much enchanted by melody; modern music is now equated with

something that is quite alienating and just hard to listen to and that means that people are less likely to take a risk on seeing a new opera, because they think it’s going to be hard on the ear.

Tell us a little bit about the selection process when choosing an opera season? I think there are definitely principles you have to apply when you’re choosing a season. ... You want to have a good range to offer the audience over the course of eight or nine months. So you’ll want to have something that’s in the Italian repertoire, which is Verdi or Puccini or Rossini. You’ll probably want to have something from the German repertoire, Mozart, Wagner. You might want to have something from the Baroque repertoire, Handel, Rameau, and you might also want to have something that’s contemporary, or which is post-war, so Benjamin Britten or Thomas Ades. Now in our case we only do three or four new productions a year so we probably get a mixture of those different elements. Balance is really important, and cost of course.

Is there some kind of reaction you want from people? Well, I think you want an emotional reaction.

A controversial reaction?

What has been your favourite production with NI Opera?

Well, controversy can play a role, but deliberate provocation can lead to rather empty results on stage. Something I’ve been accused of is deliberately being provocative or controversial but that’s certainly not how I’ve ever seen it. You need to go back to these pieces and why they were written, and always they were written by composers who were slightly out of kilter with their time, or maybe particularly liberal and humanist for their times and saw their role as challenging the status quo. And I think in order to be true to these works one has to represent that on stage and acknowledge that these pieces are almost uncontrollable living, breathing works that deserve to have their full complexity expressed on stage.

Probably two. The Tosca that we did, which was our first big production we did in Derry where we moved the audience around the evening to three different venues. It was a great experience and we had a great cast. It was the first thing that we did here and there was a really great energy to it. The venues were amazing. So, that will always be a special experience. Then Salome – so many elements have to come together, the orchestra need to be on form, the piece needs to be great, you need to have good ideas and all of that has to mesh together to create something incredible for a couple of performances. And that Salome was one for me that worked very, very well. So I would say that those two performances are the two that are closest to my heart.

What is your take on Don Giovanni?

So what do you see for the future of NI Opera?

The production was originally produced in Norway in a place called Bergen, which is a coastal town and gets a lot of money from the oil and maritime industries, and cruise ships ... so we decided to set the whole thing on a luxury cruise ship. Because it is a self-contained environment that seemed to be like a good substitute for Seville which is the original setting for the piece. And in the original opera, people are always running into each other; it seems a strange coincidence but on a cruise ship it didn’t seem so strange. And also because of the social class, particular of the era we were setting it, in the early 60s, things like nobility and aristocracy were still important in a way they are maybe not quite so important now. So there were all those reasons that led us to that take on it.

The future will be defined by my successor, whoever he or she may be. And that’s really exciting because I’m sure they will have lots of different thoughts and ideas to me. I hope the fundamental identity of the company is sustained and that identity to me is the use of local talent, particularly singing and design talent, the idea of productions being on some level informed by where these productions are being put on, (i.e. here in Northern Ireland), the idea that opera is for everyone and that opera needs to engage with everyone – the immediate level is really important as well. Hopefully, those principles and values will be just as important to whoever succeeds me as they were to me because there is an enormous amount of talent here and when one can channel it to the stage then there are some fantastic results that are possible.

INTERVIEW: Ciara Conway / Production Photography: Robert workman 7

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Exhibition Review

Royal Ulster Academy of Arts Janet Mullarney Drawing a Line

W Zoe Murdoch ARUA Imitating the Angel of Hope and Shadow

e are all familiar with the Ulster Museum - dinosaur bones, vintage cars, Neolithic tools, rare crystals and gemstones, and of course, mummies in glass cases - but did you know the Ulster Museum is also one of the finest venues for seeing contemporary art in Belfast? Tucked in amongst the aforementioned treasures is The Royal Ulster Academy’s 135th Annual Exhibition and it is a treasure in a league of its own.

Originally founded in 1879 as the Rambler’s Sketching Club, after undergoing various organisational changes, it evolved into the Royal Ulster Academy in 1950. The Royal Ulster Academy is an artist led organisation which aims to celebrate, enrich and expand contemporary approaches to the visual arts. Each year the Academy hosts an Annual Exhibition in Belfast, showcasing the work of Academy members, invited artists and artists selected through open submission. This year’s exhibition encompasses every form of contemporary art imaginable from video installations to sculpture, print making, painting, drawing, mixed medium and more. The exhibition has something to offer everyone from the avant-garde art snob to the entry level novice. With over 200 pieces of work cramped into the gallery space, it’s worth taking at least an hour or more to gain a sense of the vastness of the submissions to this year’s exhibit. The works are roughly organised within the space, but with the sheer volume of pieces it’s easy for the smaller, daintier and often more refined works to get lost amongst the haze of large, colourful and demanding landscapes/portraits which contribute to a sizeable amount of the works within the exhibit. Eleanor McCaughey This Fella

2016

Royal Ulster Academy of Arts

Exhibition Review Oona Doherty • Hard to be soft / Bob Sloan • Head

Jonathan Hall • Leavin’ Day

Amy Hamil - Oceans

Karen Gibson • All that Remains

Maggie Deignan • Facebook

With a particular focus on sculpture from the 2016 entrants, the often stagnant environment of the hung gallery space is disrupted by a number of compelling sculptural works. Whilst many of the works are left competing for attention when sharing a relatively small space, this cluttered display gives the works an opportunity to inform one another and for the viewer to get in and amongst the pieces and explore the themes suggested by the artists with more vigour. When two, three or even four pieces are competing so closely for your attention, it demands a sense of concentrated isolation. 10

Some stand-out sculptural offerings include: Amy Hamil’s ‘Oceans’, a ceramic piece emulating a worn diary, Karen Gibson’s ‘All that Remains, Chernobyl Series 5’, combines porcelain and 22 carat gold in a piece inspired by the structure of stackable Russian dolls to create a delicate and captivating work which holds its own. Larger more abstract pieces including Corban Walker’s ‘Untitled’ tessellated aluminium sculpture and Christine Campbell’s ‘Escape’ which consists of a wooden boat that is home to a colourful town built inside it, bring a diversity to the collection and allow for a move of attention from the mounted works.

This is not to say that it’s sculpture that steals the show; the incredible talents of the RUA artists see no end and the diversity amongst the painters, illustrators, printmakers and conceptual artists beggars belief. From life like portraiture such as Jonathan Hall’s ‘Leavin’ Day’ to abstract canvases such as Chris Wilson’s ‘Realm’, the breadth of form presented in one gallery space is unique. Mixed media has a moment too within this year’s offerings with Maggie Deignan’s ‘Facebook’ and Bob Sloan’s ‘Head’ bridging the gap between form and medium. As we’ve seen from recent artistic ventures in Belfast, photography is an art form that is thriving in Northern Ireland and the RUA show does not disappoint for those passionate about the medium. Aidan Crawley’s ‘Missing’ and Stephen Bradley’s ‘Heavenlike’ are pieces that demand a moment of serenity and stillness. For those seeking something more experimental and conceptual, Oona Doherty’s ‘Hard to be Soft’ video affords a taste of where contemporary art is heading whilst Joanna Mules ‘Caution Interactive Art Object’, which is a mixed media installation, invites the viewer to engage with ideas of what can and cannot be art.

Stephen Bradley • Heavenlike

Corban Walker • Untitled (Polyline) 2015

Chris Wilson ARUA • Realm

From the classic to the contemporary, from traditional to transcending medium, the Royal Ulster Academy’s 2016 exhibition is a delectable journey into what is occurring in the Northern Irish art scene and beyond. Running until 08 January 2017 it provokes thought, asks questions and offers an opportunity to reflect and investigate amongst a plethora of themes and content. The exhibit itself can be explored further through the Ulster Museum's ‘Slow Art Sundays’ programme, which invite participants on a guided talk through the galleries. Information for these events can be found at www.nmni.co.uk. For opening hours and further information on the artists exhibiting, visit www.royalulsteracademy.org where you can also view the works.

Christine Campbell • Escape

Gemma McSherry

135th Annual Exhibition 14 October 2016 - 08 January 2017 Ulster Museum, Botanic Gardens, Belfast, BT9 5AB

trelford interview

Author: The Youth Club

On the release of his first book The Youth Club, Antrim boy Neil Trelford tells of his summer of love, violence, glue, climbing trees, pot-noodles, headers and volleys, early blossoms of love/lust and most importantly his first encounter and then fastidious embrace of everything Mod.

f the Mod slant doesn’t grab you, never mind; his fish-eye renditions and memories of little details like Mother’s Pride loaves, the Maine Lemonade Man and the milkman collecting his weekly dues all set against the backdrop of the Troubles in early 80s provincial Northern Ireland should whet your whistle. Now 45 and with plenty of time to configure the early memories, Neil kindly gave half an hour of his time to speak with CultureHUB. He sounds jovial and a man at ease with himself. As to how he got to writing the book,

“I looked around and saw there was nothing telling the story of my time. I almost approached it with a Trainspotting mentality.”

Anyone lucky enough to read the book will see slight traits of Irvine Welsh’s approach to nitty-gritty realism with plenty of laughs into the barrel. Trelford’s imagination doesn’t shy as we’re introduced to many characters, an eclectic mix that fuel the fun and frolics of growing up. The book is not all rose-tinted idealistic memories though. A stabbing and the still born birth of a mate’s kid stamp a note of authority and stark realism. I ask, ‘Was Antrim as challenging at the time as how you tell it? “Very much so, the two episodes you’ve mentioned did happen and as young kids we sort of lost a bit of our childhoods at that time.” Spending most of his formative years hanging round with those older than him, the HUB asks did he find himself growing up too fast?

“I think I did miss a bit of what might be called a ‘normal’ childhood but looking back I wouldn’t change a thing.” One stand-out and lol scene is Trelford’s first viewing of Quadrophenia with two Originals, which leads nicely to the next question: ‘Do you think that Mod is an oxymoron?’ (Mod is short for modernism, started in the early 60s and revived in the late 70s), Neil answers: “Mod and many other scenes have become timeless, probably helped by technology. In my day what happened in the sixties was a lifetime ago. Our era had The Jam, Secret Affair and the Lambrettas to name but a few bands, then in the 1990’s it came again with the likes of Ocean Colour Scene and Oasis”. “They’re all very working-class and about the style, the power element of the guitars and telling your story, so I think it’s new generations adding their twist on what’s already there ... ” “I suppose one could call it that, but if you look at the punk scene there’s all sorts of off-shoots, like Blink 182, you’ll see a progression”. “This year marks the 40th anniversary of the punk scene and 2019 will see the Mod revival anniversary which will influence a new bunch of kids.” Neil adds, “One of my favourite songs of recent years is the Libertines ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ which took elements of Mod and Punk and mixed them together.”

The Youth Club as a book enjoys the mix of lots of sub-groups, be they the Originals, Antrim Mods, The Team, the Mass Generation Mods – basically Mods in fashion only – teamed with new-wave proper Mods such as The Parkhall Mods, The Stiles Mods and Neil’s wee group, The Munchkins. Chuck in Punks, Rockers, Teds, Skins and what we would now call Hoods, tension seemed to be round every corner. “I think there was a lot of tension and a lot of disrespect, the Mass Generation Mods were just there for the fashion and girls ...” “... the ‘I’m a Mod because you’re a Mod’ mentality. We had no respect for them. The Originals who brought the culture to us were so old and had day jobs and kids; they thought we didn’t get it. It wasn’t so much as in-fighting as a sort of friendly banter.” As for the backdrop of the Troubles, which features very little in the book, Trelford says, “I think that it was conscious or subconscious, but we were fortunate enough to escape that, we were fortunate enough to be far away from that. My father was a fireman in the midst of it all and he sort of shielded us from that. The idea of being away from that gave us a chance to enjoy growing up because we were somewhat a lienated from that.” In The Youth Club, you’ll find a story well worth a reading. Genuine fella, true story, even if it didn’t fit into one summer.

Conor O’Neill Photography: Tremaine Gregg

hen Ray Giffen organised the first ‘Super Sunday Big Breakfast Session’ at Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts, he was hoping for 40 people to attend, maybe 60 if he’s lucky. When nearly 300 people turned up, he knew he had kicked off something that the local community wanted.

Duncairn’s programme for 2017 boasts traditional musicians, renowned and brand new, the very local, and those travelling from further afield. “It’s striking a balance,” Giffen pointed out. “You can get a band and after three or four gigs they start to get known, and that’s great, but the problem with that is the traditional music programming starts to get stale because you’re assured of the crowd.”

“For the Sunday Sessions we ask musicians who have played the night before to delay leaving, so that they can come in on Sunday morning and do a community performance” explained Giffen, the Events Manager at Duncairn. “On a Sunday, the whole bottom floor opens out with craft classes for kids, and newspapers, and breakfast, tea, coffee, orange juice, and a live performance.”

And that isn’t the only balance that needs to be achieved. Even while running three or four gigs a week, they still run 19 classes each week, ranging from set dancing to fiddle making and beyond. There is also the exhibition space, and the artists in residence, and the lecture series. On top of all this, there is the new venture called ‘50’ – a Friday night version of the Sunday Sessions only it’s darker and more atmospheric with old black and white films going on.

In a way the Sessions capture what Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts is all about. The Centre is based in what used to be Duncairn Presbyterian Church in North Belfast. The church was the base for The 174 Trust, which, headed by Rev Dr Bill Shaw OBE, is a trusted and hard working group who have been central in building community relations in the local area for over 30 years.

Cara Gibney • Photography: Jack Rice

As Giffen puts it, the conversion of the church into a culture and arts centre was to provide, “a shared platform for everyone to showcase and celebrate their cultures and their traditions in an inclusive way where difference should be celebrated … No one will enquire as to your social standing or your background, that's not allowed. As long as you are interested in the arts, you're more than welcome through this door.” The Centre offers regular classes, live music, traditional Irish music, workshops, lectures, cafe/bistro, a gallery, and exhibitions. “The music programme has taken on a life of its own” Giffen laughed. In the original plan there was meant to be one performance a month; however, it has grown to the degree that they actually host three or four gigs a week by local and international artists. “We’ve had jazz, Americana, country, bluegrass, old timey, you name it” he added.

Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts is a shared space for the community to engage in the arts, and has a brand new programme of events for 2017. Take a look on www.theduncairn.com

Lifespring Health and Healing

Healing Pain North Belfast Creative Response Research Clinic Our Centre is a gathering of people embodying different cultures, traditions, way of life, where both Anam Chara and Explorers come and see this is a

Safe Place For My Heart We aim to be a Centre of excellence providing a Haven, In civic leadership, practice, supervision and training in various counselling, coaching and psycho-social approaches to Health and wellness.

We are about empowering individuals and families to maintain their physical, emotional and spiritual wellness in order to play a full, active part in society. This involves promoting social cohesion, working for wellness and the common good, activity promoting heart centred leadership, integrated memory, experience, positive life scripts. This opens up the possibility for change within the context of genuine, mutual conversation between equals travelling the road together; the Ancient Way of Anam Chara. Managing one’s own personal, sacred space through balancing the mind, body, spiritual and emotional make-up as an integral whole, can provide a safe base for transformative work in the context of wellness models, multi-disciplinary heart centred leadership.

Current Events at Lifespring: Transforming the Christmas Season Sat 10 December • 10.00am – 4.30pm Fundraiser for our Transformation of Trauma Programme, to enable participation by everyone. We explore how the ancient Irish understood their indigenous story open to all people – spanning colour, language, traditions, faiths, uniting all peoples at the Bruigh of the winter solstice. See www.aromamary.com for more details.

Wellness Programme – Gift Giving Sat 17 December • 10.00am to 5.00pm 164 Cliftonville Road Involves the daily use of colour, light, energy, use of essential oils in personalised recipes, gathered in our unique Wellness Kit.

The Christmas Gift Sale Opens up the attactions of these approaches through gift giving. Unique distilled essential recipes, silk scarfs, personalised pillow slips, our famous wave sounds, all form part of the gift ensemble. Our therapists, artists, workshop presenters will offer mini-sessions pointing towards our Wellness Workshop Programme re-starting in the New Year. You can explore our full programme, obtain gift vouchers and Wellness Kits. Proceeds will support our Trauma Transformation Workshops.

Spring Retreat Gathering between 28 Jan – 02 February 2017 The next major gathering will be at our venue near Ireland’s most Ancient site, Uisneach, when we will celebrate Brigid, harbinger of Spring. People can arrange to participate in our Wellness Programme over one, two days, or the whole week. Details can be obtained at the 10th or 17th event.

164 Cliftonville Road • Belfast • Tel: 028 90 753658 • lifespringhealth@btconnect.com

Seanly l e K

FESTIVAL DIRECTOR

INTERVIEW BY Cara gibney

“Eclectic is an overused term” said Sean Kelly, Director of Belfast’s Out To Lunch Festival, which runs right through from 06 to 29 January 2017; that’s more than three weeks, day and night, of music, theatre, comedy, spoken word, the new, the strange and the beautifully familiar. There’ll be classics like Fairport Convention, home grown talents like Ulaid and Duke Special, and hard hitting comedy with the likes of Dr Phil Hammond. 16

cts will be performing lunchtime gigs (with a hot meal included in the ticket price) or evening shows, or sometimes both. Venues will vary from festival staples The Black Box to more unusual settings like St Anne's Cathedral, and reaching beyond the festival’s usual environs to the likes of The Ulster Hall. Kelly has been Director of Out to Lunch since its inception as the ‘companion’ to Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 12 years ago. “We started with just lunchtime shows” he recalled as he chatted over coffee in a Belfast cafe.

“The venue was in the back of a truck

effectively, in Writer’s Square.” He’d “found a guy” who had converted the back of a container lorry into a 42-seater Victoria style Theatre, “… and that was our first festival, just lunchtime events in the back of this truck. It sold out straight away, so we knew we had something there.” Things have changed.

“The truck was lovely but was never

going to be economically viable,”

so the following year the festival moved its base to The Black Box, which has its own special place in the festival’s story. “I like to think that is perhaps one of the reasons why Out To Lunch has gained a bit of traction, because people feel entirely comfortable coming to the likes of The Black Box … It doesn't matter if you're on your own or whatever age, just come down to any of the shows and between the staff and the volunteers, there is a very diverse, warm and welcoming atmosphere. You’ll be made to feel more than welcome.” Increasingly though, Kelly is becoming fond of churches as a venue for the festival.

“The acoustics are fantastic and there is something quite magical about the experience,” he explained.

“People change their behaviour

a wee bit in a church venue.

So you tend to get an extremely

listening audience.”

The programme for 2017 proves his point already with the likes of Grammy award-winning Mary Chapin Carpenter playing the majesty of St Anne's Cathedral, and Sarah Jarosz (I’m With Her) appearing at 1st Presbyterian Church, Rosemary Street. Another reason why Kelly reckons that Out To Lunch works is the effort put into keeping prices down.

“It's very much part of our souls to make

the festival as accessible as possible ...

Against our will we've had to price the tickets up a little bit but not that much.” There are a couple of acts for whom they have had to charge higher prices. “We wanted to do a couple of prestige kind of gigs this year just to keep developing the festival. In regards to the stature of those artists we bring over, then we need to increase our costs because the money is not going to come from anywhere else at this point … It’s been a very challenging few years. The reality is that our public subsidy has not increased in about eight years, but all the costs go up - from artist fees, to flights, to accommodation, to backline. So the challenge has been to keep our tickets as affordable as they always have been.” The quality and diversity of the acts becomes evident as the programme gradually fills up.

“I try genuinely to work with

as many people as I can,

promoters like Real Music Club,

Strange Victory, and Bronte Club ...

They bring a hell of a lot to the table with their own expertise and their networks.” At which point he started laughing,

“This has saved my bacon

and it makes me look a lot cooler.”

Then he began going through the programme. “There’s Amiina (Sigur Rós) and their ethereal score to 1913 silent horror film Fantômas; Further Ted is bringing the comedians behind Father Damo, Eoin McLove and Father Stone to the stage, and a seated festival finale in the Ulster Hall with Billy Bragg & Joe Henry.” There’s more, much more, and the programming hasn’t finished yet. To make sure you keep up, visit:

Cara Gibney

www.cqaf.com/outtolunch/2017/ 17

THE ANSWER – INTERVIEW WITH CORMAC NEESON Just a few short weeks after releasing their latest album, the heartfelt and beautiful Solas, we caught up with The Answer's frontman – and lyricist of said album – Cormac Neeson, to talk about inspiration, how it feels to release personal work into the world, and why he wouldn't want to be anywhere else but where he is right now.

Congratulations on the brilliant Solas ! It's getting some great reviews, you must be so pleased. Very pleased yes. Out of all the records we've made I think we were most unsure about what kind of reception Solas would get because it’s so different to anything we've done before. I realise a record isn't defined by the reviews and opinions of a relatively small group of people, but it doesn't hurt if those people are writing good things about you.

Does it get easier to release new material or is it still nerve wracking? No ... it's still pretty nerve wracking, probably more so this time around because the songs and the sound will come as a surprise to our fans. I'm hoping what we have done will challenge people's perception of what The Answer is about, and maybe people who may have written us off in the past might actually listen to this one before they judge.

The subject matter on Solas is deeply personal to you. Although it must be cathartic to write it, is it hard releasing it out into the world? Before we did anything with this project, I sat down with my wife and discussed the possibility that I might be venting some very personal emotions through the songs in this record, and I just wanted to make sure that she was cool with that. I explained that I felt I had a lot to get off my chest and that in this album more than ever before I had something important to say. She was very supportive of this process and for me it's been a very positive way of releasing some demons that may still have been lingering but also of celebrating the fact that the dark days are in the past.

You also tap into your Celtic roots on the album, was that a conscious decision? It was, but we hadn't really any idea of how that influence would manifest itself. In my mind I had The Tain by Horslips as a loose reference but obviously it didn't work

out like that at all. I think most importantly our embracing of our Irish roots gave us a different perspective from which to approach the creative process and that gave rise to some very interesting and unique results.

You're out on tour again. Do you still get as big a buzz out of it as when you first started out? It kind of feels like we're starting over again with this album, so the buzz is back in a big way. There's a nervous energy within the band at the moment which very much reminds me of our first UK tour when we weren’t entirely sure how a gig would turn out and still learning our trade. The live show is so different compared to anything we've tried to execute in the past and that's keeping us on our toes for sure.

You're also co-headlining with the Dead Daisies, who you also played with at Ramblin' Man. Are you looking forward to hanging out with them again? Of course ... they're a great band and most importantly fun people to be around, so there should plenty of ‘on the road’ shenanigans to keep us occupied.

Will you alternate the line-up so both bands get to go on last? Or flip a coin, even?! The coin has been flipped. Each band plays the same set length every night, but we alternate the closing slot night by night - all very democratic.

The tour wraps up with a date at the Diamond Rock Club in Ahoghill. Are home shows like that any different from other dates? The Ahoghill show has actually been moved to May now. Our next Irish show will be in Belfast's The Limelight on Saturday 25 February. Home shows are the best!

The band has become very successful. Does it still feel a bit surreal to you all? Do you ever stop to wonder how it all happened? That's an apt question as ‘do you ever stop to wonder’ are the first lyrics on the record ... good work. I intend to gauge our success ten years from now so you can get back to me with that question in 2026. The Answer are currently on tour with the Dead Daisies; see their Facebook page for dates. Solas is out now on Napalm Records. Tickets for their Limelight gig are available from Ticketmaster.ie and Katy's Bar.

Melanie Brehaut • Photography: Charlie Grey

T h e B o ok

es m a N of

hough wet and cold outside, the warmth and excitement in The Black Box was palpable in anticipation of John Patrick Higgins’ The Book of Names. Directed by Rob Crawford, The Book of Names tells the story of the hermit Tim Rock, who has been left by his girlfriend Jenny and in turn has become obsessed with nominative determinism. This new fixation has led to his psychotic analysis of names, which has brought him to the conclusion that he is in fact the mouth of God. In his search for disciples, he abducts and tortures HR officer Karen, who eventually surrenders to his total irrational, cult-like train of thought, culminating in her being prime disciple material. Annoyingly playing on repeat as the audience enters is Lulu’s ‘Love Loves to Love’, which goes dormant for the duration of the play but returns with the frantic hurling of the stereo and the smashing of Lulu off the floor. When asked about this choice of song Higgins explains:

“I wanted something that would be profoundly annoying and make no sense, that sounded vaguely religious, that repeated endlessly but still delivered a nice message, something you would read in the bible or something from an Amy Grant gospel CD”.

Tim Rock addresses the audience directly and we quickly realise that we are to be involved in the on-stage diegesis throughout; Rock is ‘the king of the house’, the ‘monarch of the den’. Michael Patrick plays him as a quirky, charming singleton who evokes laughter from the audience, but something is amiss, something is unsettling. A daylight-deprived Wednesday Adams look-alike shuffles on stage and it is apparent that she is the slave to Tim Rock. The light laugher disappears and so too does the charm. Knocked out with a lamp and tied to a radiator, Karen has been subjected to torture, cannibalism and the repetitive musical accompaniment of Lulu before finally giving in to her master’s will. Rock however gets his comeuppance and chokes death having trusted Karen to make tea. Karen finishes with nuances of Nietzsche - ‘Spit out the truth of the tree of knowledge. Let’s not become gods’, a line with which she smashes the Lulu CD therefore terminating her abduction, and the production. Writer John Patrick Higgins provides insight into his compositional process and thought: “The idea for the pitch was 'Home'. I went on a long mental journey and thought about Stockholm Syndrome and how people are indoctrinated into world-views. And in a weird way, it’s about the notion of maleness and badness, and the horrors of the patriarchy going on and on and on.

If you look at the most famous case of Stockholm Syndrome, Patty Hearst who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and eventually became a soldier for them, she was radicalised simply by isolation and repetition” and they are the key tools Higgins uses.

“He’s Jim Jones, he’s a god of his own making in the middle of an urban jungle. These figures are always men, they put together these communes that are ultimately serving themselves”. Higgins expands and tells us that Tim Rock

“is based on everyone who mistakes the luck of being born white and a man as being god. There are a lot of them in history … It’s also a reference to Diary of a Madman, the character starts off plausibly, polite and chatting, which Michael did brilliantly; he’s amiable and charming. They have to be personal, they have to be charismatic, they have to be good at being messianic”. The Book of Names was brought to us by LunchBox Theatre, an in-house project with The Black Box that produces three seasons a year. Adam Turns is responsible for LunchBox and explains that each season has a specific

key word/theme to which writers can submit plays, usually within a 45 minute time limit and a five person character limit. Five plays make it to production; interestingly, once a writer's work is selected, that’s the last contact they have with LunchBox before the production. They have no creative input when it comes to direction, set design, or casting. All applications are welcome and a range of writers are chosen, from students, graduates, amateurs and professionals. The inspiration for the key word concept came from the ‘Tenx9’ storytelling event, a project that takes place in different cities around the world including Belfast. Every month, nine people have ten minutes to tell a real life-story, and of course, the storytellers have to adhere to a certain theme or key word. This season, Lunchbox Theatre’s key word was ‘Home’, and the ‘Home’ season’s final production will be 30 December with a double bill of Amelia Madan and Jonny Murray’s And into the Abyss We All Fall/ Hickory & Dickory. The main benefit of this project is that it allows writers to see their works performed and for novice directors to put their own stamp on them accordingly. John Patrick Higgins enjoyed writing for LunchBox Theatre and explains that the project “gives you something, your theme. You go on a journey with it, come up with something that relates to it, and you determine how far can you push it and still make it interesting”.

Ciara Conway

SINGLE REVIEW

Hot Cops Dumbo

Runabay You I Know Runabay have been steadily building a name for themselves on our shores over the last couple of years ever since emerging as finalists in the 2014 Chordblossom Kickstarter contest, and ‘You I Know’ is a winner of a single capable of accelerating their rise yet further out of the Glens of Antrim. A song that was made for a winter campfire in the vein of Fleet Foxes or Elliott Smith, the intensity never lets up from the opening fingerpicked acoustic guitar. We are implored by singer John McManus that “This is the time to run a mile and save yourself indignity.” All the while we have a mournful cello straight from a lost Game Of Thrones soundtrack and tales of “picking off leaves like War and Peace, you’ve got them figured out for sure.“ It’s an interesting mix of frantic escapism and languid rumination before the galloping drums whisk us away through the rest of the song. We are treated to a pleasing variety of instrumentation, with some tasteful percussion, tinkling pianos and string stabs lending an epic feel without the cloying self-conscious ‘bigness’ that can sometimes arise. This is the real deal, and when you add to that the spot-on harmonies, you get a four-minute nugget of gold to help see you through the cold winter.

Gerry Walton 22

Lovingly clean Fender sounding chords are picked out as intro; some might say 50 seconds before vocals chirp in may be indulgent, but they’re so enticing and backed by a nicely plodding bassline and tight drums, the intro flies by before well thought out lyrics sang by an unassuming yet confident voice brings us snapping back to reality. And for the first time in a long time, you can actually make out what’s being sung. The subject matter is dark. Nothing wrong with that in a world were shiny vacuous and vapid pop rules as king. To juxtapose the dark theme, the music chimes and shimmies its way along before Hot Cops deliver a sort of Pixies/Placebo soft then heavy brooding backline and distorted guitar bursting to bloom as the band deliver their dead-pan yet angered message to the fore. This tune doesn’t sound or feel formulaic. Whoever is behind the words knows the power of poetry thrown Jackson Pollock-like against and within beautifully damaging edgy guitar and a thundering crescendo. ‘Eyes dried up within his skull, clouds of birds Korea bound, as we move on to two horse towns’ set a cinematic eye to verse before the finale of ‘When I hear your name I choke’ and repeat. Sincere alternative rock has rising stars. At long last ...

Conor O’Neill

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Roman Lipczynski

oman Lipczynski opened his email to CultureHUB with an earnest and honest declaration. If you’re a regular reader of the magazine, you’ll know our previous issue was produced with a focus on community relations in Northern Ireland, and not just between the community divides we’re all too aware of; we looked beyond the obvious and immediate past of Northern Ireland towards the evolving cultural diversity and to what that means for both the community as a whole, and for those that arrive here for economic, social and personal reasons.

Roman Lipczynski was born in Sosnowiec, in the south of Poland. He is an artist and photographer, from a family of photographers, and lived in a very industrial area of Poland. “It's an industrial region, with lots of mines and factories,” and it was difficult for Roman to secure a steady income whilst pursuing his art. A move to Naas (ROI) with his girlfriend and family,“our dog Witek and our cat Puma,” brought them on an adventure that took 40 hours to arrive in Ireland to begin their new life. Having worked broadly in a range of artistic pursuits in Poland, including starting as a wedding photographer for his father’s business where he learnt his craft (“we had our own studio, so I was able to take still life photos after hours”) then as a photojournalist for a number of national and international publications as well as a writer for comic books and of short stories, Roman arrived with a wealth of experience and creative endeavours behind him. Like with many things, life gets in the way, and sometimes art, whilst always a passion and something that offers a sense of calm and release for him, had to take a step back to make way for the demands of tricky economic situations.

DOCUMENTARY Hi. My name’s Roman. I’m from Poland. I’ve been living in Ireland for three years. It was a lifetime ago... I found a job here, in Ireland. Physical one, in a factory. My hobbies fell asleep...

When you moved to Northern Ireland, did you find you stopped creating work, or simply that you didn’t have the time to allow it to be your main focus? I didn't stop creating. I have been doing it since … I can't remember. Non-stop, I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. Sometimes I create something and I 'put it into the drawer' like we say in Poland. But I must write and take pictures. I'd like to do it professionally once again sometime.

What kind of things were you creating in Poland and what kind of photography do you specialise in? I opened my own firm Mirror Photos whilst I worked as a photojournalist for a local newspaper "Silesian Tribune" and for a magazine "European Integration". I cooperated with a Polish photo agency and I published my photos in magazines, books, CD covers. I organized five exhibitions of my photographs. As a writer; I published my short stories in an anthology of short stories Against the Nature, and in magazines both printed and online. I'm an author of two comic books, Without End and The Moment like a Flame. There are about twenty stories based on my short stories. For my photography, I use a digital camera and often photograph people and landscapes, and explore the relationship between both – as you can see in my photos. For me, you know, the language of pictures is the best. Isn't it? Everyone can understand it, without any dictionary. I can come to a country away from home, like this one, and my picture can speak when sometimes my English can’t.

Roman's work shown here is a documentation of a recent trip to Portugal during which the artist wanted to explore the marriage of images and words in relation to time and place. More of Roman’s work can be seen at

www.roman l ipcz ynski.co m GEMMA MCSherrY 25

n October, Ciaran Lavery was awarded 2016â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Northern Ireland Music Prize; his most recent award, hard won amidst tough competition. As an artist he offers right-on-the button lyrics, music that shifts from clever to haunting to sharp, a curiosity that continually extends and alters his direction, and the stagecraft of a natural yet slightly sardonic sod, who talks with his audience like he has all the time in the world up there.

Earlier this year he released his second solo studio album Let Bad In. This is a collection of songs rich with childhood memories, and while it veers away from themes of love and the price of love that previous releases have wrestled with, it is still delivered with his signature sanded voice. In December, his second album of 2016, Live at The MAC, is launched. A compilation of tracks from Let Bad In, his debut album Not Nearly Dark, and his Kosher EP, along with a few carefully selected covers fill out this effort. Each song is expertly arranged for string accompaniment and performed live at The MAC with Rachael Boyd on violin, Zarah Fleming on cello, and Owen Denvir on viola. It makes sense. It wasn’t the first time he had performed with such accompaniment, but it’s the first time those songs had been recorded with those arrangements, and capturing the atmosphere of the live show for which they were actually written sews everything together. Indeed, the use of a string section in the arrangement of songs is something he had been interested in for a long time. “Ever since I heard Neil Young’s 'A Man Needs a Maid' and Tom Waits’ Small Change record, I’ve been fascinated by the use of strings or orchestral arrangements,” he explained. “As a singer songwriter I knew my music could lend itself to the addition of strings, so it was an itch I had to scratch at some stage.” Still, there’s a risk in a live recording. Anything can happen on the night. “I believe if I didn’t do it then, I would have eventually at some stage … Live records are very exposing and it’s hard to know how it will translate, but I hope it gives people an idea of the atmosphere we created over two sold out nights in Belfast.” The strings on the album were arranged by the composer Dan Byrne-McCullough, who has since

become a full-time member of Lavery’s team. “He was very sensitive about arrangements around the songs so working with him was easy,” Lavery told me. “There was a level of trust in what he was writing from an early point.” They discussed the songs beforehand to, “find common ground and an overview for the entire feel of the arrangements.” After that it was handed over to Byrne-McCullough to work on, until it was time for Lavery to hear what had been put together. To various degrees the final result shifts the axis on which Lavery’s songs rotate. Take 'Orphan', for example, the original recording is exulted, electric, and the string arrangement creates a version furthest from that original form. “It proved to be the most difficult by far [to score for the strings] mainly because we were always attempting to retain the energy and spikiness of the original but add those lush string elements.” The album also includes covers of songs like 'Philadelphia' and 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and these carried their own specific dilemmas for the string arrangements. “There are elements of a cover that you feel it needs to retain – a tag line or melodic phrase that are the backbone of the song, for example.” “We [Byrne-McCullough and Lavery] were both very careful about creating something that not only nodded its head to the original, but also tried to spawn something from it that pulled it into our world without stripping the song of the elements of interest or beauty.” You can hear Lavery performing with his string section at The MAC Theatre on 19 December. After that the ever moving troubadour has another record on his mind. “I’m spending time, when I can, working on some new material for 2017. The plan is to keep moving forward, always. I see no other way of existing.”

Cara Gibney PHOTOGRAPHY: TREMAINE GREGG / CARRIE DAVENPORT

BELFAST

TWELVE CITY WALKS

“Flourescent with history, ingenuity and potential” is how Declan Hill

describes Belfast, though after an extended conversation with the man, I note that the same words could be applied to his life and work.

FLUORESCENT BRICK

STEP RIGHT UP

red and born in Belfast, he studied architecture at Queen's prior to plying that trade in London, Hamburg and then back in Belfast. He worked at Todd Architects for eleven years leading the housing team and co-founded the Forum for Alternative Belfast. He was part of the team that set up The Black Box and sits on the management committees for both Belfast Exposed Photographic Gallery and Flax Arts Studio. Not long ago, he established the Belfast Urban Studio CIC, and for his recently launched, Belfast – Twelve City Walks, he not only wrote it but also did the photography and sketches. I interviewed Declan Hill in a coffee shop near the centre of Belfast - not City Hall - but the place from which all distances are measured in Belfast, which is the ‘Four Corners’ where Waring, North, Rosemary and Bridge Streets meet. This is the 'real' and historic centre of Belfast. I know this now because Declan told me. Indeed, he knows a great deal about Belfast and has an obvious passion and

love for the city. Fortunate for us, he has decided to convey much of that in his new book.

“I want to share the streets, spaces and places through which the life of the city flows”. Declan explained that the idea for the publication came to him in Buenos Aires. He had always wanted to go there and when he finally did, he was looking to get to know the city in more depth than he was getting from the usual guides. By chance, he stumbled across Gabriela Koran’s Buenos Aires: 16 City Walks which became his trusted amigo and compelled him to do something similar for his native city. He composed a rough outline in a cafe there and now visitors to Belfast as well as its life-long residents have a fascinating guide to take them on twelve walking adventures and one city bus jaunt. Declan extols the virtues of walking though he by no means is averse to driving or any other mode of transport. Nevertheless, when you're walking, “you can stop and look around and take in the sights and sounds and smells; it engages all your senses”.

He is in agreement with Paul Scott Mower who said, “There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast”. Declan holds that,

“You need to walk to get the scale of a city” and fortunately the scale of Belfast lends itself perfectly to a number of good walks. Belfast – Twelve City Walks is focused on providing access, and each walk has a map with numbered stepping stones of buildings and places of interest to guide people around. They are designed to suit all levels of accessibility and he not only gives suggested times for each walk, but more importantly recommendations on where to stop for a pause, refreshment and conversation/contemplation after completing the journey. When I asked if he had made many discoveries for himself about Belfast while compiling this work, he said wistfully,

“There is the big loss of traditional red brick terraced housing ... decisions that were made during the 50's when industries were in decline and people were encouraged to move out into surrounding towns where new industries were being established in towns with greenfield sites. The Lower Shankill and Lower Falls, Sandy Row, Donegal Pass, the Markets, Short Strand and Sailortown – all these places lost so much of their red brick, two-bedroom housing, and that's the housing people are looking for today. Where that housing survived - the Road, Cregagh, Springfield Road the local shops and areas are vibrant today”. Despite neglected and abandoned areas of Belfast, Declan Hill is not pessimistic about the city; indeed, he sees great potential and hope.

“This is a historic city, a revitalised city, a city of invention and creativity ...”. Contained in the walls of his book, the reader will find new ways of seeing the familiar along with intriguing gems and insights. I am partial to the section on 'The Entries', those narrow alleyways off Anne Street, High Street and Donegal Street where, as Declan writes, “we can still feel the sense and noise of their previous activity”. Dip into this pocket-sized production and start your stroll onto the stepping stones carefully surveyed and served by this sagacious citizen. Copies can be purchased at Waterstone’s, Visit Belfast, the Wickerman and PLACE. For further information, contact declan@belfasturbanstudio.org. Scott Boldt 29

VISITING ARTISTS For a Christmas party with a difference, why not try one or even more of the concerts, gigs and performances bringing NI to life with musical visitors. Starting off December comes Scottish legends Primal Scream. At Limelight, Belfast, on 01 December, they will make their return with their distinctive euphoric, trip-rock compositions.

assenger will be at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on the 4th alongside Johannesburg folk singer Gregory Alan Isakov. A soothing Sunday evening, in contrast to US Rockers Pierce The Veil who will be at Mandela Hall the same night. Scottish rockers, Twin Atlantic, return to Belfast with a new album to perform. Catch them at Limelight 1 on 11 December. Indie Rockers Low come all the way from the USA to Empire Music Hall in Belfast on 12 December, headlining a special Christmas performance. Low, with their quirky titled tracks, perform cinematic, depth filled performances - ones to catch if you can. Chas and Dave, the ‘Rockney’ legends are coming to Belfast on 17 December and will be a treat to listen to at Ulster Hall. The cockney duo are fondly embraced with their witty, rhyming slang creations.

The 17th will be the notoriously biggest pre-Christmas party weekend and has a lot of other musical temptation in Belfast between home artists and visitors. For some sweaty Ska, head to the Belfast Mod/Ska Festival at Mandela Hall. Eighties heartthrob Nik Kershaw will be at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast on the 22nd. Joined by Go West, this will be a double whammy of 80’s flashbacks. A perfect Christmas present for any fans! January kicks of with something quite different! Steve Davis, of the 80’s Snooker player fame, teams up with DJ and radio show co-host Kavus Torabi to present a night of music, unveiling his musical ear at The Black Box in Belfast on the 6th. Different? Yes … Curious?... Definitely! Brought to Belfast for the CQAF Out To Lunch Festival, this is unmissable. Tommy Emmanuel, the slick fingered percussive guitarist comes all the way over from Australia to the Ulster Hall on 08 January. Known for his complex and energetic performances, he is a must see for any guitar fans or players. On Thursday the 19th, The Felice Brothers and HorseThief can be heard at Limelight 2. They combine fiddle, accordion and guitar to deliver their distinctive folk-rock/country rock sound. The CQAF Out To Lunch Festival has a heady mixture of music and arts focused events across three weeks, featuring performers from both Ireland and abroad, including Billy Bragg, the English singer-songwriter-left wing activist on the 29th at Ulster Hall. As part of the Out To Lunch Festival taking place 06-29 January, Sarah Jarosz will be at the Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church on the 26th. Petite Sarah is hailed as a gifted multi instrumentalist, with the The New York Times describing her as “one of acoustic music’s most promising young talents: a singer-songwriter and mandolin and banjo prodigy with the taste and poise to strike that rare balance of commercial and critical success.” For the full line-up and to purchase earlybird tickets for events check out: www.cqaf.com/outtolunch/2017/

Stacy Fitzpatrick

ALBUM REVIEW

Malojian This is Nowhere

The 4 of Us Sugar Island

Perhaps the brightest shining star on an already impressively studded belt of work, This Is Nowhere masterfully makes the most solemn affairs feel like dappled sun in true Malojian fashion.

They haven’t went away you know, and with this effort they are here to stay. Sugar Island is the latest release from Newry men The 4 of Us and is an endearing LP, reminiscent of Shack’s 1999 glorious slow burner H.M.S Fable. And like that record, Sugar Island will be returned to many, many times.

Scullion finds poetry in the supermarket and on the end of the phone with carefree melodies and a bright nostalgia. I can only compare to the first time I heard The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who. On ‘I’ll Be Alright’, militaristic percussion accompanies a light-hearted, swinging ode to soldiering on, joyous whistling and elements of Schadenfreude that were skipping around my head for days. Electric staccato bursts through sweet melancholy in ‘Dam Song’ and ‘You’re Part of Me’ echoes the distant throbbing of an aching heart. These wonderful harmonies cannot go without further mention, as well as Scullion´s comfortable range between rich baritone and the more fragile and inviting higher moments which add warmth to darker themes of impatience, frustration and loss. Malojian have yielded here a magnificent work of infectious choruses, satisfying hooks and simultaneous moments of pure optimism and beautiful vulnerability.

The opener, 'Birds Eye View', has a thigh-slapping country tinge to it and its sister song on the album 'Just A Drop' are lively offerings amongst 12 songs of perfectly penned lullabies. Title track 'Sugar Island' has radio friendly stamped all over it, and skipping down to song six 'Argenta', with its orchestral intro and the scrape of fingers on acoustic fretboard and haunting vocals sounds like another sure-fire single to please old fans and claim new ones. They’re all grown up now, have earned their stripes and their right to dip into the pool of nostalgia. Everything is loaded, toyed with and the bill settled. There’s only one overtly political song here. 'Hometown On The Border' has at its heart the innocence of wanting to block out our country’s past, yet nods to its influence on life and lyrics.

Evidence of Scullion´s empathetic lyricism and universal insight do not lack here and each track has its own unique personality which only complements the next, leading me to echo the sentiments of the unknown voice at the end of ‘I’ll Be Alright’: Bloody nice. Bloody, Bloody nice.

My personal favourite is 'High Wire Walker' which encompasses the album’s main theme, the fragility of life and the desire for bravery. And they’ve succeeded. This is an honest and brave return to form. Highly recommended, top notch song-smithery.

Tiarnán McCartney

Conor O’Neill

Ciaran Lavery Live at The MAC

The Answer Solas

Ciaran Lavery fulfilled a long-held ambition with the release of his latest recording - a live album with strings. His love of Small Change by Tom Waits was apparently a big inspiration, and this recording is a quiet gem captured from Ciaran’s appearance at The MAC during December 2015.

Ten albums into their career and The Answer have released what is possibly their most ambitious and creative record to date. Solas is a record that sees the band embrace their own Celtic folk culture and then fuse it with their usual trademark guitar-fuelled rock anthems.

Opener ‘Awful Love’ stirs up from a cinematic bed of strings and is the perfect introduction to a lilting collection ideal for a Christmas stocking. ‘Left For America’ channels Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic side in a similar vein to Ryan Adams at his most stripped back. This is the template for an always-beautiful listen which, while requiring a commitment to the bare-bones nature, is not without its fire. ‘Tell Them All’ is a passionate highlight around the record’s centre. The pacing is good too, as that is followed by the gentlest moment in ‘Shame.’ ‘Orphan’ raises the tempo to a jolly skip as Ciaran wails “I wanna hold you there inside this perfect space.” Here we even get an audience participation with the wordless “Woah-oh-oh” hook around the chorus, and even a few handclaps. To round off, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ is reimagined as a slow acoustic lament, of course with those ever-present strings, while ‘Have Yourself A Merry Christmas’, along with much of the disc, will surely warm even the coldest of winter hearts, while possibly breaking them a bit at the same time.

Gerry Walton

The epic ‘Battle Cry (Seo An La Mo Laoch Mo Ghra)’ is a fine example of what the band do best in writing a catchy anthem style song that uses a clever mix of acoustic guitars and Celtic chants to deliver what is surely going to be a massive fan favourite track. Similarly ‘Thief Of Light’ is drenched in spine-tingling Celtic choral harmonies. The hypnotic ‘Being Begotten’ shows the band’s love of the blues with its brooding rhythm and subtle guitar. A highlight on the album is ‘Demon Driven Man’ with its mix of acoustic guitar, mandolin and electric guitar along with a pounding drum beat and the occasional high pitched scream from lead singer Cormac Neeson. This one screams classic 1970s rock at the listener. One fault with the record lies with the production. It sounds a little too crisp and sharp, and it loses feeling. The title track ‘Solas’ should be a brooding tribute to Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, but it sounds more like U2’s ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’. Overall Solas is a strong record that sees the band re-invent themselves after difficult times. Full of intricate acoustic work, it won’t alienate existing fans and may even find the band a new audience along the way.

Gerry McNally 33

O E H M

ARTISTS Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything - Plato

rish musicians from both North and South of the Island will be putting their Christmas plans on hold to bring some festive entertainment to us all in the run up to the jolly season. Belfast Empire Music Hall’s monthly event Gifted on December 1st brings some fresh, up and coming talent this month. Headlining will be Orchid Collective. The quartet are fast making a name for themselves on the new music scene with their alt-folk sound, reminiscent of Bon Iver. Joining theme will be Castlerock Lo-Fi pop band Brand New Friend, Omagh’s Son Of The Hound and Derry’s Touts. December 2nd brings The Blizzards to Limelight 2. The energetic, pop outfit are making a comeback after a six year absence, and they are surely coming back with a bang! If pop isn’t quite your thing, catch distinctively Irish voiced Declan O’ Rourke at The Black Box on 02 December, showcasing his new album In Full Colour.

Foy Vance performs at the Ulster Hall on 10 December as part of his new album tour with Irish rockers The Coronas taking the Ulster Hall stage the following evening on the 6th. If a Monday show doesn’t suit your schedule, Foy also returns to the Ulster Hall on Saturday the 10th. Velvet voiced Lisa Hannigan will be at The Glassworks in Derry on Thursday 08 December. Lisa’s gentle tones and acoustic strums will melt away any pre-Christmas stress. Janet Devlin, of X Factor fame will be at the the Empire Music Hall on 14 December and also in Omagh’s Strule Arts Centre on the 16th. The tiny Tyrone girl came fifth in 2011’s series of X-Factor. Shizznigh Presents The Woodburning Savages at Limelight 2 on Wednesday the 14th December; also on the line-up are Anto and the Echoes, Vokxen and Ravens. Duke Special will be at The Lyric Theatre in Belfast on December 16th, 17th and 18th performing Huckleberry Finn, his specially commissioned musical theatre piece. A special show with guests, this will be a unique venture for Duke.

For some charged sweaty dance beats, Shine presents DJEZ and Chris Hanna at Limelight 1 on the 16th. Malojian, along with Arborist, The Holy Innocents and The Mad Dalton will be at the Eglantine Bar, Belfast on 17 December. Legendary Van Morrison will be giving Belfast a pre-Christmas treat on the 18th at the Waterfront Hall, whilst over at Limelight 2, catch popular Derry quartet PORTS along with Silences, Jealous Of The Birds and Joshua Burnside. Lisa Hannigan will be at the Empire Music Hall on the 19th for the Belfast leg of her tour, but on the same night Ciaran Lavery performs at The MAC. Bringing the live music right up to Christmas, Brian Kennedy will be at Belfast’s Ulster Hall on the 21st. For a New Year party with a twist, NI Soul Troops ‘Suited And Booted’ NYE Special returns by popular demand to the Empire Music Hall. Featuring Pocket Billiards, Aggressors B.C and Buzz Sounds Crew DJ’s, this will be cracker way to ring in 2017. When the Christmas and New Year festivities are over, January has a modest smattering of gigs to keep the January blues at bay. Newry’s The 4 Of Us can be caught at Ardhowen in Enniskillen on the 7th. Traditional music heavyweights Ulaid - McSherry, O’Connor, Graham - will be at The Black Box in Belfast along with Duke Special on Sunday the 15th, bringing the expert sounds of their fiddle, pipes and guitar. The Saw Doctors will be making a special appearance at The Ulster Hall on January 21st. Trad with a folk-rock edge, these guys are legendary. Concluding January’s home artist gigs, fans of Wallis Bird should definitely head down to the Empire Music Hall in Belfast on the 26th where she will be performing tracks from her current album Home. Her fifth album to date, it is a dedication to her muse and partner, filled with sentiment.

Stacy Fitzpatrick

THE 4 OF US

Telling the story

ince their 1989 hit 'Mary', The 4 Of Us have written, performed and toured their own material at home and abroad, winning awards and wooing fans. Innumerable singles later they released their 10th album, Sugar Island in October, and this one is different. “When the band first took off we were touring all round Europe. It used to really bug me because everybody would be questioning us about The Troubles in the North. In England, Spain or Sweden, we’d go into radio stations and they would say “Oh, you’re from the North,” and they’d have this pained expression. You’d get really defensive about it because

for me everything was fine, it was no problem. Then I came home and for the first time I realised, 'hey, this isn’t that normal at all'.” Sugar Island is dotted with songs illustrating this very point. Tracks like 'Bird's Eye View' is about living on the hill in Newry as children, watching the blue lights and red flashes in the city below as another night of violence unfolded. “I’ve heard a lot of songs about the Troubles but what I haven’t heard is what my experience was, which was people trying to live normal lives with the Troubles in the background.”

Brendan Murphy is aware though that this reality or ‘normality,’ was so much starker for others caught up in the turmoil, and that it wasn’t a task to take lightly. “We were just kids … I knew people who had tragedy, but I didn’t have it directly,” he was keen to point out. “I knew that if I did write about it, that it’s a dangerous area to get into. It would put me off nearly listening to it if someone said to me, 'Here’s a song about The Troubles'. I’d be thinking 'Ah Jaisus, here we go again'.”

In its final track, the album has moved on. In this song the band see what was happening through grown up eyes. “At the end of the album there’s a song called 'Hometown On The Border'. It’s the only song that speaks about how what I thought was ordinary, actually wasn’t really ordinary at all. In every other song I’m in the mind of a kid, it’s all happening in the present tense. But in the last song, it’s me looking back. We put that song on the end just to explain the context. ... Without putting that in, the record didn’t seem “There is a song called 'Going complete.” South',” he continued by way of illustration; “it’s the story of Brendan said the album is Murphy family summer Counting every car behind us in the most narrative holidays in the south of of songs they the line. Waiting at the checkpoint collection Ireland, which ultimately have released in their two ended up in long queues at marking time. Rolling down the decades as a band. “As a the border checkpoint. You lyricist I wanted it to be window so I don’t have to share. more couldn’t wait to get to the in terms of short beach or get to Butlins or The cigarette smoke hanging stories”. Nashville is one wherever. But there’s the reason for this shift in in the air. checkpoint, and there’s loads of direction. A few years ago you [in the car]. It was that Brendan started visiting annoyance of taking forever to get Nashville to work on his song just across the border”. writing. While there he met songwriter Sharon Vaughn who “Counting every car behind us in the line subsequently travelled over to Ireland several times to co-write Sugar Island with Brendan and Waiting at the checkpoint marking time Rolling down the window so I don’t have to share Declan. The cigarette smoke hanging in the air” Her angle on the songs and the writing of the songs was Not all the tracks on the album hark back to the conflict. incisive. “We knew that if we worked with someone who Title track 'Sugar Island' for example is a tale of throwing was a stickler for detail, and who was outside our away that love, the one that will haunt you for years after experience, that it would be good for us ... She’s used to the event. “It’s not real” Brendan admitted. “Anybody I working with acoustic guitars and her background is said goodbye to on 'Sugar Island', I’m glad I said goodbye country - old country”. They have also been working to,” he added with a laugh. with Enda Walsh since their very first record. “He’s one of those guys that can pick up any instrument,” Brendan Continuing on the 70’s theme, the track '1973' gifts us pointed out about the man who runs the studio where with vignettes of characters from the era. It stems from a Sugar Island was recorded. “He’s an amazing musician.” conversation Brendan had with his father. “I started off with daddy in mind, and then I started writing about a Sugar Island was released on 28 October, and an different character completely.” With a sense more of the accompanying tour will see The 4 Of Us travelling changes that age brings to us, the song is gentle, wistful, is throughout Ireland for the next few months. For more info riddled with references to ’73, and rings true with anyone on the 4 Of Us Ireland-wide tour, visit www.the4ofus.com. who lived through it or has parents of that age.

“

CARA GIBNEY • photography: tremaine Gregg

For more info on the 4 Of Us Ireland-wide tour visit

www.the4ofus.com/shows/ 37

Lorcan McGrane A Cultural History of the Horror Film

“There is a song called 'Going

Following on from his recent Faculty lecture at The Black Box,“A Cultural History of the Horror Film”, I sat down with comedian and Film Studies lecturer, Lorcan McGrane, to talk formative horror film experiences and the state of the horrific nation, as I threw cooking lager down my neck and he vaped like he was smoking a fox out of its den. Lorcan, how and when did you first get into horror? I suppose I could trace it to a childhood love of dinosaurs, which led to watching TV reruns of the likes of King Kong (1933), The Land That Time Forgot (1975) and Valley of Gwangi (1969), still the premier cowboys versus dinosaur movie. My father would tell stories of seeing such films as The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) and Frankenstein (1931) and the Hammer Movies when they were coming out in the late 1950s. I found it amazing that these films would be on in the small rural Monaghan town of Ballybay. Before the current wave of cheap-to-produce reality TV, there was more repeats of classic movies,

especially late night weekends on BBC2 and Channel 4. The video nasties ‘banned’ list gave a generation of fans a shopping list of horror films that they might never have heard of. I doubt that was the intention of the likes of Mary Whitehouse or Sir Graham Bright MP, who was convinced that video nasties affected dogs as well as young people. There were also some great hardback, lavishly illustrated books on the subject like Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies (1973), Alan Frank’s Horror Films (1977) and more philosophical and critical works like David Annan’s Cinema of Mystery and Fantasy (1984) and Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies (1988).

Can you still recall from those Day of the Dead has a great array of to the stolen moments behind the sofa thatambiguous Brendan Murphy is aware though this realitycharacters or Inreacting its final track, the album has moved on. In this song zombie apocalypse realistic ‘normality,’ was sogave much you starker for others caught up in in very the band see ways, what was happening through grown up which films first that plus lightly. it has an in “At it played by of the album there’s a song called the turmoil, “WeIrish guy eyes. the end frisson of fear?and that it wasn’t a task to take

were just kids … I knew people who had tragedy, but who I is quite 'Hometown Onstay The Border'. It’s the only song that Jarlath Conroy content to I remember a weird sensationheinwas the keen pit ofto point didn’t have it directly,” out. “Ihome knewin an underground speaks aboutbunker how what I thought was ordinary, actually in a static that if I did write aboutThe it, that it’s a dangerous area to get and saying wasn’t‘Jaysus’ really ordinary my stomach when seeing Creeping drinking whiskey a lot, at all. In every other song I’m in It would metime off whilst nearly quite listeningan to understandable it if someone reaction the mind of a kid, it’s all happening in the present tense. Fleshinto. (1973) for theput first to a zombie said to me, 'Here’s a song about The Troubles'. But in the young, especially the sequences of the apocalypse. Videodrome is the perfect last song, it’s me looking back. We I’d be thinking 'Ah Jaisus, here we go that song on the end just to explain flesh forming for the first time like big, combination of philosophy, sexualityput and again'.” the slimey butcher’s sausages. There were special effects, very prescient too as we context. ... Without putting that moments - getting to see the start of other live through these over-stimulated times. in, the record didn’t seem “There is a song called 'Going American Werewolf in London (1981) at the house of a school friend and there was I find a lot of horror films from the a power cut just as Jack (Griffin Dunne) last twenty years or so pretty appears for the first time to David (David boring - I'm no fan of witless gore Naughton) which had us all terrified. By or torture porn - but recently it the time power was restored, Carry On seems as if horror is going Loving (1970) was on.

Horror seems to be endlessly mutable, that is its secret power. It is able to change to reflect cultural circumstances and offer a critique of its times. Is horror inherently satirical? Hopefully yes! There’s nothing worse than a po-faced horror film. Horror films allow for great depictions of the breakdown in society and are expert in undermining authority figures of science or religion. I love the cyclical nature of horror and how it builds on its own history to the extent that there’s great movies about horror film history too. Personal favourites include Joe Dante’s Matinee (1993) and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994). I remember seeing The Exorcist upon its re-release to cinemas in the late 1990s, which was a big deal for a horror fan who had only seen a bit of a very fuzzy video bootleg, and being surprised by groups of teenagers coming in and laughing all the way through it. The sort of metaphysical battle between good and evil that was pertinent to a previous more religious generation was of little interest to them, the flares and boking seemed to be the main source of humour, amid my silent tutting at how lucky we were to being seeing it in the cinema again.

What is, push comes to shove, your all-time favourite horror film? It would be a toss-up between Day of the Dead (1985) and Videodrome (1983).

through another period of renewal. I thought that The Babadook, It Follows and, especially, The Witch were excellent. Could there be hope for horror? And if so, where do you look?

It can be hard to keep up both with new movies and re-issues of lost classic and some not so classic movies from DVD labels like Arrow and Shameless. The Soska Sisters’ American Mary (2012) is probably the closest to the sort of philosophical body horror that I love and it is fitting that they are slated to direct a re-make of David Cronenberg’s Rabid. The Hatchet trilogy is a great deconstruction of the slasher movie as is The Final Girls (2015), and of course, The Cabin in the Woods (2012). Having turned 40, I have been enjoying recent films concerning terrible things happening at middle-aged dinner parties - Coherence (2013) and The Invitation (2015). Having to go to a dinner party seems terrifying enough for me, even before parallel dimension or cult shenanigans ensue.

Finally, what is the most horrific horror film you've ever seen? Oh, it would have to the French-Canadian Martyrs (2008), probably one of my favourite horror films that I’m in no rush to see again!

John Patrick Higgins PHOTOGRAPHY: JOhn Nutley

M FOR

SCREA

OUR GUIDE TO NI’S

I NBrendan Murphy is aware though that this reality or

ROCK

GIGS

&METAL

‘normality,’ was so much starker for others caught up in the turmoil, and that it wasn’t a task to take lightly. “We were just kids … I knew people who had tragedy, but I didn’t have it directly,” he was keen to point out. “I knew that if I did write about it, that it’s a dangerous area to get into. It would put me off nearly listening to it if someone said to me, 'Here’s a song about The Troubles'. I’d be thinking 'Ah Jaisus, here we go again'.”

DECEMBER

14 Wednesday “There is a song called 'Going

in,Init's In its final track,he thenights albumare has closing moved on. thisgetting song pretty the band see what waschilly happening grown upabout it, damn – yep, through there's no doubt eyes. “At the end of the album there’s a song called winter is here, but don't get ready to hibernate 'Hometown On The Border'. It’s the only song that just yet. There's an array of gigs, large and small, for you speaks about how what I thought was ordinary, actually shiver along to andInwarm cockles of your wasn’ttoreally ordinary at all. everythe other song I’m in heart the mind a kid,good, it’s allhonest happening the metal. present tense. withofsome rockinand But in the last song, it’s me looking back. We put that song on the end just to explain the context. ... Without putting that in, the record didn’t seem

•Shizznigh presents The Woodburning Savages w/Anto and the Echoes, Vokxen & Ravens - Limelight 2

16 Friday •Triggerman w/Baleful Creed, Rosco's Riot & Nasa Assassin: Pavilion Maverick (Mike Ross' last show) w/Safire – Voodoo, Belfast

17 Saturday •Trucker Diablo w/Hell's Addiction - Diamond Rock Club, Ahoghill • Beartooth w/Trashboat - Limelight 2

Conjuring Fate

Baleful Creed

18 Saturday •PORTS w/Silences, Jealous of the Birds and Joshua Burnside - Limelight 2

21 Wednesday • The Emerald Armada Winter Show w/Brand New Friend, Brash, Issac & Life Goals - Limelight 2

23 Friday • Pat Mc Manus Band w/guests Diamond Rock Club, Ahoghill • Geoff Tate w/guests - The Belfast Empire

Zlat

Dead Label

Pat Mc Manus

29 Thursday • Motorheadache - A Tribute to Lemmy w/guests - Limelight 2

31 Saturday • AC?DC w/guests - Diamond Rock Club, Ahoghill

Selene

Trucker Diablo

JANUARY 14 Saturday • Diamond All Star Band w/guests - Diamond Rock Club, Ahoghill

17 Tuesday

shrouded

Stormzone

The Irontown Diehard MAVERICK

• Meshuggah w/The Haunted - Limelight 1

21 Saturday • Rival Sons w/guests - Limelight 1

28 Saturday • Stormzone w/guests - Diamond Rock Club, Ahoghill • Black Peaks w/guests - Limelight 2

Special mention this month simply has to go to the Limelight for putting on at least one gig seemingly for every week of winter – keep up the great work, guys! Stay tuned for the next gig guide for all your headbanging/moshing/crowd handclapping needs – until then, keep 'er lit, rockers! \m/ \m/

Melanie Brehaut • Photography: Marc Leach 40

C as tl eCo u r t S h o p p in g Ce n t r e U P PE R F LO O R • U n it 3 7 b • B E L F A S T facebook.com/freshpopuk

@freshpopuk

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POP CULTURE

URBAN

fashion accessories

& LIFESTYLE

A FRESH take on POP Culture

With the latest trend and styles in fashion and accessories, we deliver premium service with a touch of local personality. www.freshpopuk.com

FR E S H P O P U K .CO M *EXCLUDING IN STORE PROMOTIONS, 1 0 % O F F S E L E C T E D L I N E S . T & C ' S A P P LY.

The Cultured Club FERMENTING A CHANGE

eople from different cultural eople from different backgrounds eat different cultural foods. Thebackgrounds ingredients, metheat foods. The ods different of preparation, preservaingredients, methods of tion techniques, and types of preparation, preservafood eaten at different meals tionamong techniques, vary cultures. and It is a types of food eaten at fundamental fact that differentiates differentfood meals vary Italian among food. Japanese to say, cultures. It is a fundamental fact Dishes have been shaped by these many influences that Japanese food have to say,laboured Italian and and differentiates by the generations which food. Dishes have been shaped by these adjusted the basic ingredients. Regionalmany variations influences andand by the generations have bear this out food can be anwhich anthropological laboured and adjusted basic ingredients. exploration through the the senses. Regional variations bear this out and food can be an anthropological exploration through the senses.

"Culture, when it comes to food, is of course a fancy word for your mum.â&#x20AC;? michael pollan, in defense of food: an eater's manifesto 42

Food as culture is a powerful force of connection. Rarely doesisaacommunity come Food as culture powerful force oftogether connec- and seldom do people without come some together sort of sustenance tion. Rarely does meet a community provided and shared. When people gather to eat, and seldom do people meet without some sort they express theirand culture or ethnicity of sustenance provided shared. When through patterns, nourishing the body and the peoplesimilar gatherfood to eat, they express their culture soul while shapingsimilar their identity. or ethnicity through food patterns, nourishing the body and the soul while shaping Culture is something that is alive, dynamic and their identity. changing; often we only notice our ways of doing things have changed when we seeand some historiCulture is something that is alive, dynamic cal footage or only talk notice about the changing; often we our way waysthings of used to I think changes to we oursee food doing be. things have changed when someculture are beginning historical footage to or ferment. talk about the way things used to be. I think changes to our food culture are beginning to ferment.

www.theculturedclub.com

Bacteria get me excited and they are at the new frontier of medical understanding as we observe how this invisible world influences our health. It holds huge potential to shift our wellbeing into a favourable state and all has to do with the process of fermentation, which relies on communities of bacteria working together to transform raw food into a ‘superfood’. Digestive issues from irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease to auto-immune problems can all experience a dramatic shift by tweaking a powerful force within us, by deliberately reaching for some probiotic rich food. I have fallen deep into the world of fermented foods and have become an advocate of its wonders and a revivalist of this lost skill. It’s hard to really know where the inspiration for something so intrinsic and ancestral stirs from until you are deep in the journey. Beyond being intrigued, I had no idea why I was choosing to forcibly rot all my food! Not many of us in Ireland grew up with these fiercely fermented, powerfully pungent foods and perhaps the closest you came was the buttermilk mixed into your mash or the smell of soda farls baking on the griddle. It all began for me when life transitioned into motherhood, and there was a meeting of my own childhood and a deep respect for my upbringing. I feel privileged to have been brought up in a house where ‘culture’ was the cornerstone, cosily nourished in the

comforting smells and tastes of homemade cooking from my mother’s kitchen. As a Home Economics teacher, my mum ran the home with dedicated attention. We knew our grocer, butcher and milkman and every meal was cooked from scratch. Sadly, it is entirely possible that, within another generation, cooking a meal from scratch may seem exotic and ambitious. This shifts the idea of fermentation into the realms of extreme, yet it is a skill which we need brought back to our plate and wedged into our food culture. Baking a loaf of sourdough bread or chopping up a cabbage for a nutrient packed jar of sauerkraut is a chance to ensure that we are moving in the right direction, because fermentation is a kind of alchemy that both encompasses and transcends science, it inspires artistic variation and it can be a defiant stance against losing control of our food. There is a mind-blowing variation of fermented foods which your palate has yet to discover. Once your senses have been awakened to the tang and vibrancy of fermented foods, you probably won’t look back. Food choices will be easy and favourable and deliciously good for you. Food that bears the unmistakable signature of the individual who made it is the taste of love. Dearbhla Reynolds

Fermen

ting

Food 43

Eamonn

McCrystal

New Mexico based Tyrone tenor Eamonn McCrystal quotes Beethoven - ‘to sing a wrong note is insignificant, to sing without passion is unforgivable’. There is no doubt that music has been his passion since his BBC Radio Ulster debut at age 9, and with the release of his new album And So It Goes, the airing of a PBS Christmas Special, and an upcoming movie in the making, CultureHUB are brought right up to speed with Eamonn’s ensuing American ventures. 44

I’ve read that your big break came when you were working as a stage manager in London.

They’re all pretty special. They’ve come from different people over the years. ‘Breaking up is Hard to Do’ is very special because when I was nine or ten a friend of my father said ‘you know he sounds a bit like Neil Sedaka, you should get him to sing, ‘Breaking up is Hard to do’’. Years later I met David Foster and we were in his house singing through songs and David says ‘You should sing ‘Breaking up is Hard to Do’’ and I thought, I can’t believe this song is coming back again! It was little stories like that that kept reappearing over the years, or songs that I did in shows that people loved live and people said ‘oh I wish you could record that’ and we never really got round to. So this is an album that really drives the music industry crazy because it’s music from everywhere. I mean where else would you have a Neil Sedaka and an Adele song on the same album?

I’ve listened to the album and it’s great to hear classic and contemporary songs that will appeal to different people of different ages. Exactly. Normally when they make those albums here they’re very pigeon-hole, you know, ‘this is a Christian album with a Celtic sound’ or ‘The Music of Northern Ireland’ which is pop based with an orchestra. So this was fun and special because in Nashville we recorded it all with the musicians in the one room at the one time, and that very seldom happens. We recorded it in the space of a week and even more rare than that, we recorded most of the songs without a click track. Nowadays in the studio everyone uses it but we didn’t because we thought it would help the music breath more and get that authenticity from it. So we had a lot of fun making it and bringing new life to old songs. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band wrote ‘Stand a Little Rain’ and people don’t associate them with that type of a song so it was great that we could put French horns on it with the big orchestra and have some fun with it.

Can you tell us about ‘I See Sky’ and ‘Pray for Peace’? Steve Diamond and Kerry Diamond, two lovely people from Nashville, wrote ‘I See Sky’. The minute I heard the song I loved it. It had clever lyrics with a beautiful melody and it was one of those songs that the first time you hear the demo you say ‘I really want to record that song’. ‘Pray for Peace’ was the exact same thing. There was a shooting in Dallas and I was on an airplane out of the city when it happened. Later that day James Foster said the A&R person at the record label had sent me a song. The minute I heard it I called Chloe Agnew and I said ‘Chloe we need to record this song’. Then Rita Wilson also joined us on it. Rita, I’ve known for maybe six years, she is one of the first people I met when I came to America, and of course she is Mrs Tom Hanks. She’s always been very supportive of my career and we thought Rita’s voice would blend beautifully with Chloe’s.

I didn’t even think it was a big break. I was working for BBC radio in London and I came home to help out with a promoter in Belfast. They had forgotten to set up a driver for Randy Travis to do the rest of his tour after the Belfast show and basically I became the driver. Then one day I got totally lost in Dublin and was driving round in circles. His wife Elizabeth was trying to find a store she had been in 17 years prior so I gave her a CD to look at, not to listen to, just to flick through the pictures while I figured out where I was going! And I thought nothing of it. But her make-up guy who had worked on films like Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy was over in Ireland with her and he said ‘You should really listen to that CD’ and so they went back to America and the next month Elizabeth signed me to her management company. And it really took off from then. I had sort of put music on the back burner at that point. I thought I was going to work in media. I wasn’t trying but I suppose when you don’t push for something those things happen.

In 2015 you did a PBS Special, ‘The Music of Northern Ireland’ - Can you tell us a bit about that? We recorded that in the Grand Opera House in Belfast and we had wonderful stars from home. Brian Kennedy, Rachel Tucker, Keith and Kristyn Getty and of course you can’t do a show about Northern Ireland without May McFettridge! That was our cast and it was a complete surprise that over 40 million people had seen it in America and it has continued to run here in America which is amazing. We won four Emmys for ‘The Music of Northern Ireland’, which was a total and utter shock.

We start here in Santa Fe this Christmas and it’s called Santa Fake. Basically, my character is an illegal Irish immigrant who comes over on a boat from Ireland into New York City. I get involved with some interesting characters and they ask me to take a suitcase somewhere. However, I don’t know that the suitcase is full of money and the FBI start to chase me. So I jump on the first bus I see which is going to Santa Fe, New Mexico and I hide out there dressed as a Santa Claus. So it’s a fun show, it’s a star cast and it’ll be my first starring role. There’s a lot of music in it so that’ll be great. I’m a singing Santa Claus so I sing a lot of Christmas songs. We start shooting on Boxing Day.

Interview: Ciara Conway Photography: Michael Barbour Photograph location: The Merchant, Belfast

I’ll Tell My Ma runs from 18 January - 04 February

For booking details, visit themaclive.com

or phone the box office on 0289023 5053 Starring

Christina Nelson (Handbag Positive) Directed by

Alan McKee

(History of the Peace Accordin to My Ma) Produced by

Joe Rea

fter his directorial debut with last year’s Handbag Positive, renowned actor Alan McKee takes the plunge again. Teaming up again with Joe Rea Productions, and this time with the relative unknown writing talents of Patricia Gormley, I’ll Tell My Ma is truly a step into the unknown. The play is centred round four generations of a West Belfast family, tracking the stories of four different females from 16-year-old Davina Corrina with a penchant for Russian Vodka, the high-flying cavorting of Chelsea Marie, her 30-something mother with the deliciously titled CryinAir, to the dabbling with the keyboard of grandmother Patricia trying to put her life down on paper, to finally the 80-year-old musings of the matriarch of this tribe trying to find her way through the modern world. Award winning actor Christina Nelson (The Sneezing Chicken, Big Telly and co-founder of Big Fish Theatre Company) fills the heels of all four characters with the invitation, according to the blurb, ‘Come and meet Belfast’s funniest, maddest and most lovable family’. Sounds like fun. Breaking from rehearsals, McKee shares a few minutes with CultureHUB. As to how he came to get the gig, McKee says two words, “Joe Rea. He said he had this script and mentioned the lovable Christina Nelson as the actor and we decided to give it a go.”

(50 Shades of Red White & Blue and Handbag Positive)

As for the unknown writer, Mckee says, “Patricia has been writing for herself for a number of years and this is the first thing she has written that’s ready to be put in front of an audience.” Brave indeed. Rea, a former actor himself and widely acclaimed producer with GBL, branched out on his own last year. This new venture proves he’s not one to ease his way in with the tried and tested but hopefully with new and exciting writing talent. McKee reveals the play is, “A lot of autobiographical stuff and then just stories she’s heard over the years.” With his bum greeting the director’s chair for a second time, the HUB asks what it’s like to move from being directed to directing? “Well, it’s totally different, you can be a little more creative, but you’re also the go-to person for every decision. It’s also great not having to learn lines which gets harder as you get older.” He makes it all sound very natural, but it’s note-worthy that McKee has acted under some of the best in the land and indeed the world, including a short stint under Lord Richard Attenborough in Closing of the Ring. With the age differences varying from 16 to 80, how will cast and crew pull this off? “Well, we’ll definitely be looking to pull some tricks there, you want to keep things minimal, but it’s essentially one woman telling how she wrote her book, but of course you have the other characters telling their stories and they all have their own opinions of the book and all have their little

Hilarious New Comedy Play IT’S ABOUT LEARNING

127 Falls Road • Belfast OPENING TIMES: 6AM - 5PM things going on.” In full flow now, McKee adds: “It’s about seeing the similarities running through a family, and sometimes children can find it easier talking to their grandparent instead of their mother and with four generations we get to see some of that, we get to see how they communicate in that way.” Written by a female about four females, acted by a female, CultureHUB asks how he is finding the oestrogen-fuelled content? “It’s a bit of a challenge, but it’s a human play. One of the things I’ve found working with it is that men don’t tend to communicate easily with each other. I find women to be much more emotionally intelligent than men. But in this they all have some stumbling blocks with each other and that’s a human thing and is universal.” As for working again with Joe Rea, McKee states, “Joe’s great. He’s full of support for everyone. He’s as hands on as you need him to be, but he doesn’t micro manage which is great because you need to make the decisions yourself. He’s exactly the sort of producer I need, and he’ll occasionally even bring you out and buy you a drink. Occasionally.” Starting in Belfast’s The MAC, will the show tour? “We’ll see how it goes. We’re delighted to be in The MAC, it’s a great space and there’s a lot of seats there to fill during the run!”

Conor 0'Neill

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Stephen Maxwell Birds: No Guarantees

ne of my presents for my 10th birthday was The Observer's Book of Birds. The only birds that I can remember in Belfast in the 1960s were pigeons, starlings and seagulls, all of them adept at delivering parcels of keek onto my head.

It was 1981 before I really developed an interest in birding, but in 2010 I took it to a higher level after seeing a photograph of a hen harrier taken by Ian Dickey, a great local bird-photographer. I realised that bird photography was what I wanted to do and my bank balance takes a hit every now and then when a new camera or lens is needed. Bird photography, as I soon found out, is not easy. First of all, birds move very quickly and there is no guarantee that they will strike proper poses for the camera. Luck

is a big part of the equation. It also helps if you have some knowledge of bird behaviour and are prepared to do some groundwork and a bit of stalking. Birding is supposed to be a relaxing pastime, but in October 2013 it became a calamitous experience for me. I was walking over wet rocks at Ballymacormick Point when I slipped and, in order to protect the camera, threw myself headlong into a whin bush. The camera survived the fall but my kneecap was severely dislocated and separated from the quad tendon. Lack of mobility, however, did not stop me from getting onto boats and photographing birds on the Irish Sea. I was lucky on one such trip to have a gannet, our largest sea bird, follow the boat and hang on the wind about 20 yards away. The resulting photograph was a bit surreal as the bird's head-on profile gave it a very strange appearance.

At the moment, the winter migration of birds is in full swing. About two thirds of the world population of Brent geese travel from Canada to Stangford Lough before dispersing around the coast of Ireland. Strangford is particularly rich in eel grass, a favourite food. Large numbers of ducks such as teal and widgeon also arrive to spend the winter. In October the wind was blowing from the East for a while and, as a consequence, rare birds that should have been migrating from the forests of Siberia to South-East Asia were blown off course. One MEGA rarity was a red-flanked bluetail which was discovered close to the lighthouse at St John's Point. It was a difficult bird to track down and I only viewed it through binoculars for a few seconds. Fortunately, my partner-in-crime, Ronald Surgenor, an intrepid photographer, managed to catch it with his lens. November can see an influx of Bohemian waxwings from Scandinavia. Waxwings are really beautiful birds and are generally tame and approachable. They are likely to be found in shopping centre carparks where they feed on Cotoneaster berries and other shrubs. A few years ago a small flock of them paid the Short Strand a visit. The real thrill of bird photography, as far as I am concerned, is finding out that you have taken a really great shot, perfectly exposed and sharp, after the photos have been uploaded to the computer. I volunteer at the RSPB â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Window on Wildlife' Reserve on Airport Road West and I would recommend it to anyone interested in birding or bird photography. It is a wonderful place where thousands of birds live in a relatively safe environment, although sparrowhawks and peregrine falcons fly in from time to time for a ready meal. It hosts its own small herd of Konik ponies, a hardy Polish breed which require neither shelter nor food and the RSPB use them as natural grass cutters. Birding is a great way to pass the time; you meet lots of strange, middle-aged men with beards, some of whom possess a wealth of knowledge and are prepared to share it with beginners. A word of warning ... it can become addictive and you might join an even stranger group of birders called twitchers. Twitchers are people who will go to any length to see a rarity, spend thousands of pounds on their obsession and sometimes end up in the divorce courts. Next year I hope to go birding in Israel DVWP (God Willing, Wife Permitting).

Stephen maxwell

AER Music looks at things slightly differently. Their aim is: “to provide as much as possible a platform for grassroots music to be heard by a listening audience,” and it ranges from “people playing their very first live gig to more established acts.”

here is however more to it than that. AER have other fundamental aims and founding principles.

“To raise money to support children and young people with cancer, and invest in cancer research.” Mark Reid founded AER Music in 2014. His daughter Amy Ellen Reid (AER) had passed away the previous year at twenty years of age, after fighting cancer with “outrageous courage, strength and grace.” The initial devastation turned into

“a determination to keep her memory alive and to do something worthwhile in her name.” What started off as an initial fundraiser turned into a bigger, wider-reaching idea, and AER Music was born. Over 50 artists have performed at AER since its inception. With an emphasis on acoustic based acts, AER Café Sessions are hosted in Haptik Coffee Bar in Newtownards, and AER Live Lounge House Gigs bring the sessions beyond the town centre. Indeed, Mark intends to move the music even further again.

“2016 has seen us branch out a bit into Belfast and beyond,” he explained, already with sessions taking place in Ballymena.

“AER has evolved; it's no longer only a club in one place. We're trying to get the music and the cause to where people are, [and] we are experimenting with the Facebook Live option to bring the music to people’s phones.” Another way they are getting the music out there is by releasing compilations of the acts they showcase at their gigs.

“There are so many amazing artists out there that don't always get heard. So we decided to compile a CD of some of these artists and get them into people’s hands.” Now onto their second release, AER Introducing Volume 2, Beneath the Skyline boasts contributions from home-grown talents including Sam Wickens, Wookalily, Brigid O'Neill, and Peter McVeigh. The collection is a handy introduction to up and coming acts, and an inspired Christmas present.

Cara Gibney

Check out the website, for more information and CD sales www.aermusicclub.co.uk

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