NEW MUSIC

FEATURING INTERVIEWS WITH: CIARÁN SWEENEY LANDERS LUCY MCWILLIAMS RUTH MAC SIRKT SON WYVERN LINGO YOUNG BABY KAFKA

Words & Photographs by Clare Davies

Ireland has long been a nation of emigrants. Almost double the island’s current population of 4.9 million has made the trip overseas since the latter part of the nineteenth century — travelling in droves to search for work or adventure. The Irish have adapted and assimilated into cultures and countries all over the world, and there are currently 30,000 of us who have chosen to call Germany our home away from home.

As we acclimatise here in Berlin, the word “deadly” transforms to “super”, “genau” creeps intoour vernacular and we lose count of how many times we’ve had to explain the meaning of“grand”. We begin to doubt our own knowledge of traditional Irish music when ourinternational counterparts mention The Kelly Family, confused by how we — as natives of Ireland — have never heard of them before. A sandwich is no longer made up of Denny’s ham and slabs of red cheddar between two slices of Brennan’s batch, but instead is a crunchy ball of chickpeas, complemented by something off-pink and pickled and a splash of yoghurt, wrapped up into a durum. €800 for a flat replaces €800 for a room, and German friends are wide-eyed as we regale them with tales of pints “triple this price” in the faraway bars of Fade Street, during a Friday Kneipe-crawl.

Nevertheless, as we loudly proclaim “Sláinte!” before clinking a half-litre mug of beer into another, we reflect on how nice it is that the lad from Kerry who overheard our dulcet Irish tones felt comfortable in asking to join the table. It’s then that we realise that even though we’re geographically distant from home, the culture of Irish diaspora makes it feel like we never stepped foot into another country. Ireland is a small island with a huge community that stretches the four corners of the earth, and somehow — like moths to a flame — we manage to find each other. The concept of six degrees of separation seems to dissolve when it comes to the Irish, which has been highlighted over the last few weeks during which I had the privilege of interviewing New Irish Musicians in Berlin. As I greet Karen, Caoimhe and Saoirse of Wyvern Lingo, the latter tells me that my face is familiar, and we agree that we’ve definitely met on a night out at home before. During my chat with John Rooney (aka Sirkut Son) we realise that the man I used to have my picture frames made by is his former flatmate. Max and Paul — the Berliners that make up two-thirds of Landers — exchange knowing glances as Christopher and I discover we have a friend in common, and I assume that this isn’t the first time they’ve been in the Baldoyle man’s company when a mutual Irish connection has been made.

Ciarán Sweeney

Ciarán Sweeney has been playing Irish music for his entire life. A carpenter by trade, he had a six year stint between Australia and New Zealand — travelling around, living in hostels and using his guitar to educate the other guests about Irish traditional music. “That really gave me a bit more confidence in my presence as a musician,” he remembers. “I was playing to different people all the time and getting good responses.”

Out of the various adventurers from a host of different cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds and countries that passed through the hostel circuits, Ciarán made a lot of German friends. They told him about how multi-cultural Berlin is and how great it is for artists starting out, which made him wonder if the capital might be somewhere he could make a career as a full time musician.

A brief spell back in his hometown of Killygordon in Donegal only encouraged this idea further. Upon his return, Ciarán spent his time perfecting his guitar-playing skills and becoming more comfortable on stage by playing in local bars, and he noticed there were a lot of German tourists in the crowd. “The Germans have this song that has the same air as Wild Rover called Nordseeküste, and anytime I played that they were able to tap and clap along,” he tells me. Based on this Ciarán thought that there might be a market for Irish traditional music in Berlin and decided to make the move. Right off the bat, he jumped in two feet first and infiltrated the Irish pub scene, gigging at The Irish Times and The Irish Harp. Here he met Liam Blaney and a host of other Irish session musicians, and soon after, was invited to play at The Irish Festival. He played alongside a collage of artists from Ireland and mainland Europe, all of whom share an affinity with Irish music. “It brought loads of people from all walks of life to witness what we do, and raked in a few more fans of our culture,” Ciarán says, before telling me about a Greek friend of his who has a passion for Irish Dancing.

Although Ciarán mainly performs covers by the likes of The Dubliners, he also writes his own songs. Working with Ken Deburca — a pioneer of the Irish music scene here in Berlin — Ciarán recently released his track Éireann Mo Ghrá. The tribute song to Martin McGuinness, “A great man who did a lot for Ireland,” has been cut from 12 minutes to 5 for the sake of recording, but was received well when played in its entirety back home. He’s looking forward to debuting this song to a German crowd, which he credits as being a very engaged audience who show a genuine interest in hearing about the culture and really tune in to the story you’re trying to tell.

Landers

In 2006, Christopher Colm Morrin showed up to his first German gig. Going under the moniker Robotnik back then, a friend had put him forward to play at a business hotel in Karlsruhe, where he performed in the basement to an audience of five men in suits. He enjoyed the experience of gigging outside of Ireland, which prompted him to organise his first Berlin show just a few months later. Fast forward 5 years of experimental folk performances at Whelan’s and poetry nights in the magical basement of International Bar, and Christopher was back in Berlin to stay.

As he reminisces on the “conveyor belt of madness” that was the Dublin folk scene, he tells me he misses the bond that the community had at the time, but credits his move to Berlin as “an expansion of the mind.” Acquiring an atelier in Neukölln, Christopher’s focus switched from music to painting and writing poetry for a few years, before a chance encounter with drummer, Max Von Der Goltz encouraged him to start making music again. Through Max, bassist Paul Breiting was recruited, and the threesome began playing together under what would come to be known as Landers. “From the first rehearsal, I thought, ‘This going well!’,” Christopher tells me. “We all felt secure even though our insecurities were out there, which is when experimentation comes to the fore.” With influences spanning Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis and Sean Nós singer Joe Heaney to ambient sounds and drones, it is easy to understand why experimentation is important to the group.

Pleased with how things were going, and even though Landers were only playing as a unit for a matter of months at this stage, the band spontaneously decided to record something. Renting out a room in KAOS — a warehouse near Schöneweide — they set up a small interface and a couple of mics and enlisted the help of Aidan Floatinghome. Four days of recording resulted in six tracks, but the lads decided against releasing the KAOS session as an album. “With the psychotic split of the band, some tracks are more traditional and some are more like experimental jams,” Christopher explains. They opted to instead stagger their releases in two track packages, and obviously made good use of their time in lockdown, because two of four parts of the session are already available to the public. Just Thinking followed the April release, Clear Blue Sky, this month, and Landers are expecting to have their third segment out by February.

Lucy McWilliams

“Bursting with youth,” reads a YouTube comment underneath Lucy McWilliams’ music video for Runaway. This really couldn’t be more accurate.

As the song opens and we follow the protagonist on her route through urban green spaces and the juxtaposing concrete of Mehringdamm train station, the excitement and freedom of being young and in Berlin is infectious. The chorus kicks in, and we arrive at the canal, where the sun and Lucy’s friends are beaming. Hugs and beers are exchanged, rollies and photos are made and then the gang are on their way. After a quick pitstop at the Späti, they arrive in Tempelhofer Feld, and are filmed running around — singing and dancing until the sun sets — as Lucy’s melodic harmonies play in the background.

The video is so much fun, and the singer tells me the playful aspect that shines through is attributed to the fact that all of the people featured are friends of hers. “It’s so much nicer to share these kind of things with people,” she tells me. “There’s no point doing it without your friends.”

Working with friends and other artists has been a massive part of Lucy’s musical trajectory. A few years ago, she was approached by rising star on the Irish rap scene, Malaki, who heard her singing and thought she’d be perfect to feature on his song, J.A.C.K. “I had never collaborated with anyone before,” Lucy says. “I’d only ever written alone, and I felt so much pressure because this meant so much to someone. I didn’t want to do it wrong.” Clearly though, Malaki was impressed by Lucy’s contribution, because the pair have continued to work together alongside producer Matthew Harris. Their most recent track has been a resounding success, and has hit over a million plays on Spotify since its release earlier this year.

Collaboration is a big factor when it comes to writing with her own band, too. A student at BIMM, Lucy has had the opportunity to meet some very talented musicians since she’s been in Berlin, and feels lucky to have found Sebastian (bass), Riccardo (keys), Victor (guitar) and Nic (drums). Lockdown was a creative process for the 5-piece, as they relocated to to Dublin and settled into writing music for a whole month. Much like with Malaki and Matthew, Lucy clicked instantaneously with her band, which is clear to see in the live streams they’ve been partaking in over lockdown. Just like the video for Runaway, the energy coming through the laptop screen when watching their Hotpress Lockdown Session, in particular, is palpable, and I’m excited to see them play live when they eventually can.

Ruth Mac

Hailing from the West of Ireland, Ruth Mac grew up amongst a lively community of traditional musicians. 40 minutes from Galway on the Clare border, the cute and colourful port village of Kinvara hosts the famous Cruinniú na mBád race of the Galway hookers every year, and is also home to the music and community arts festival, Fleadh na gCuach. With a population of no more than a thousand, Kinvara is a one street town with a school and nine pubs. Through the “serious sessions,” in these pubs, Ruth became interested in learning to play the guitar herself, the many traditional musicians that passed through the village becoming her teachers.

While Ruth’s inspiration came from the traditional music she was engulfed by as a kid, her influences are more ingrained in folk and soft-rock. Her parents’ very solid collection of records were consistently played around the house as she was growing up, and have been significant in determining her sound. There are definite notes of Joan Baez in Ruth’s vocals for her song Speed, and her preference for sparsity when it comes to guitar arrangements mirrors the compositions of one of her childhood favourites, Joni Mitchell. “I was very much a bedroom musician until about a year after I finished college,” Ruth tells me. She had moved to Dublin aged 18 to attend Trinity College, and spent her evenings writing in her room. It was in Dublin where she performed her own songs to an audience for the first time, and where she formed a stable band. Since moving to Berlin, Ruth has been playing solo at the likes of Madame Claude and Hosek Contemporary, but is excited to show the bassist and drummer she’s recently recruited the EP she’s written.

“The fact that Berlin gives me the opportunity to afford to have a studio to write in is a huge game-changer,” she says, when I ask her if being in Berlin has changed the direction of her music. When it comes to writing from experience or coming up with fictional concepts, Ruth tells me she does both — although her writing from experience comes more from a place of observation. Her time spent in Berlin means that she observes her home differently to how she did when she was living there. Ruth expresses that she feels more influenced as a musician by Ireland now, and makes the point that the feeling of home is very strong when she goes back. She finds herself very inspired by the physical place, stating, “I forget until I’m there how beautiful the West of Ireland is.”

Sirkut Son

Derry native, John Rooney, has always been creative. He won his first art competition aged 4 (a drawing of himself and his mam for Mothers Day) and eventually went on to study Visual Communications in Belfast. After graduating, he moved to Dublin, where he continued his illustrative pursuits and also busked on Grafton Street as the bassist in an 80s hair-metal group. Covering the songs of Kiss, they called themselves Shift, — wordplay on the band they emulated, using Irish slang. Alternating between leather trousers and matching suits, Shift doubled up as a 50s/60s era wedding band, and even had the opportunity to play at an Irish bar in Russia after an eager publican approached them during one of their street sessions. The gig in “Hamiltons” felt like the bands peak, and so they parted ways after that.

Going solo, John began making synth-wave as Haüer, and ran a successful night called Technoir in the venue formerly known as The Twisted Pepper. However, the over-saturation of synth music at the time combined with the desire to begin injecting vocals into his music — plus the fact that no-one seemed to be able to pronounce Haüer — led John to explore new avenues. This eventually lead to his current project, Sirkut Son. Initially, John broached the idea of vocals to his ex band-mate from Shift. When he put down his own demo to give some structural advice, he thought, “This sounds alright actually, maybe I’ll give this a go myself.” From there, he got in touch with producer Sean Corcoran with the intention of producing an EP, but there was so much recyclable material from his years of making music that they finished up with a seven track album.

Obtaining the title Sirkut Son from a piece of graffiti on Clanbrassil Street, John tells me it was originally used to name an old demo which has since been re-worked and has become the first track on his debut album, Photo Sensitive. Now named, You Have Used Me For Long Enough, the track was the first single from the album and is complemented by John’s self-made music video. The video portrays John “playing” a series of handdrawn cardboard instruments in his Berlin flat, while wearing a black and white mask that is not too dissimilar to the face-paint of Gene Simmons.

Wyvern Lingo

Wyvern Lingo has been on the Irish music scene for years. “Friends first and a band second,” Karen Cowley, Saoirse Duane and Caoimhe Barry all grew up close to each other in Bray, County Wicklow, and bonded at age 11 over similar tastes in music.

The three had siblings that played music together, all of whom were very encouraging when it came to them starting their own band. Karen’s brother inspired her to pick up the bass as well as continuing her piano lessons, and Caoimhe was influenced into buying a drum-kit with her confirmation money. From then, the trio would spend school lunchtimes rehearsing in Caoimhe’s garage, often using the classic Irish excuse of, “We forgot we left the immersion on and had to go back,” for returning late to class. Saoirse tells me that she has recently organised all of the bands early recordings, which, she says, are surprisingly good quality and could easily be repurposed. “Some of the tunes are pretty banging!” they all agree, before telling me about an old diss song they wrote. It was about a friend called Lucy, whos name for the purpose of the song was changed to Goosey. A second diss song followed referring to the girls who told Lucy about the song.

Wyvern Lingo’s lyrical content has come a long way since the “un-self-aware teenage emotion” displayed in the recordings of their garage sessions. This is especially apparent on Brutal Lottery, one of the four singles the band has released this year ahead of their second album. The song was written four years ago, and recorded last year here in Berlin. It is a raw and powerful ballad, calling out the “blissful apathy” of many to the plight of the tens of thousands of refugee children that have “slipped into the cracks.” The threesome chose to finally release the track in the late summer of this year, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement that was sweeping the globe. Karen explains that it just felt right to release Brutal Lottery at this time, because, “Like with Black Lives Matter, a huge part of the refugee crisis is structural racism.” All proceeds went towards the Belgian organisation, Missing Children Europe.

This is not the first time Wyvern Lingo have actively contributed to social and political causes; I remember seeing them play at the Olympia in Dublin years ago in aid of Repeal the 8th, and more recently, the group contributed to Ruth-Anne Cunningham’s “Irish Women in Harmony” project. Collaborating with 38 other Irish female musicians on a cover of the Cranberries song, Dreams, the venture raised over €200,000 for Safe Ireland. Speaking of their experience, the group says, “That was a great lockdown project that, most importantly, shone a light on the female scene in Irish music.”

The band has made good use of their lockdown time. They’ve finished their upcoming record Awake You Lie, — which is now available for preorder on their website — and are in the process of editing the music video for their most recent single, Rapture. Comfortable in their studio set up (a boat on the Spree), Wyvern Lingo is grateful to the city of Berlin and its appreciation for people doing creative things, and are excited for their audience to experience the vibrancy of the city through their video.

Young Baby Kafka

Seán Gallen arrived in Berlin five years ago by way of Glasgow, where — alongside studying filmmaking — he created his rap alias, Young Baby Kafka. Born in Paris and raised in Dublin, Seán grew up in a household much like my own — one that favoured rock and reggae over rap. As we chat about Bowie and Desmond Dekker, Seán makes the point that although it wasn’t played at home, the likes of Eminem and Dr. Dre were difficult to avoid when growing up as a teenager in Noughties Ireland, before admitting that he actually purposely did not listen to rap at that time.

Half-Irish and half-Martinican, Seán speaks about the irony of the kids at school bullying him for being black while claiming that Tupac was their favourite artist. Coming up against different forms of racism and trying his best to fit in, Seán says he leaned heavily into indie music, so as not to be tokenised as the “black kid”. It was only when he heard Dizzee Rascal’s “game-changer” of a debut album, Boy in da Corner, that his interest in rap was peaked. Young Baby Kafka is an amplification of Seán’s persona. While aspects of his own life were borrowed to build the character, he was attracted to rap because, “You can create an alter-ego, an escapist fantasy to live in.” He’s conscious of not going down the traditional, trap route and putting forth an ultra-macho image, but stresses that he doesn’t want Young Baby Kafka to be a political vehicle either. Interested in postirony within the spectrum of rap, the project is not conscious hip-hop.

Aptly titled The First, Young Baby Kafka’s debut mixtape was released earlier this year. It consists of four tracks, features a host of collaborators, and is mixed and mastered by Seán himself. A stand-out track on this release — not just for its catchy chorus — is RIP Joe Dolan. I’m curious if Seán is a secret showbands fan. He tells me about the rap cliché of making a track for the dead homies, and explains how that, combined with the fact that the name just rhymed perfectly with everything else, is the reason behind the lyrics, before proclaiming “I have a huge respect for Joe and his work!”

As we discuss the potential release date for his second mixtape, Jazz for Cows, I can’t help but wonder if any more obscure Irish references have been made.