My musical journey started with a lot of Church organ and Bohemian brass music in a tiny village in Bavaria – and when I say village I really mean it. At the age of five I developed a desperate desire to learn the guitar, because my mum had one (for her kindergarten group and she … Read more
Wingform is an hour-long piece of music I composed for Crash Ensemble between 2017 and 2020. Scored for twelve musicians, it has four ensemble movements connected by my own solo electric guitar passages, which act as a kind of connective tissue for the whole body of the work. Wingform – Barry O’Halpin & Crash Ensemble Bandcamp … Read more
Rezo are long-time friends and musical collaborators Colm O’Connell & Rory McDaid. Colm is based in Dublin, Ireland and Rory in Malaga Spain. Borne largely out of the Covid pandemic (Rezo means “I pray” in Spanish), the pair worked entirely remotely to create their critically acclaimed debut album Travalog which was released in May 2021. … Read more
I grew up in a rambling country house with damp bubbling from the walls and ghosts lurking in the locked rooms. It was big enough for a family of five to lose themselves, each in their own space, occasionally coming together for meals, but not needing to live in each others’ pockets. Just beyond the … Read more
For a lot of my life I felt a fervent need to be doing something creative but I didn’t know what. Eventually I started to feel the unsated creative urge turn to intense frustration within me; a physical tension through my body, like important growth held back or suspended indefinitely. I pictured bunched vines in … Read more
THIS IS WHERE I KEEP MY DREAMS I was born and raised in Dublin, in a house with a piano and a garden. At the bottom of the garden, there were two beautiful chestnut trees, one taller than the other. It was here that I went when I needed to be alone. I always observed … Read more
In my studio here, I have a clavichord, built by my parents in 1971, with a somewhat rococo and amusing backdrop painted by my mother (who otherwise has left us with a stunning body of mostly modernist artwork). I grew up with this painfully quiet clavichord, along with a gorgeous harpsichord (also built by my … Read more
Paul Francis Quin has proven himself an approachable enigma. The myriad glamour shots gracing the cover of his upcoming album ‘Life on Earth’ and various assorted publicity materials tend to portray him as otherworldly, a strange mixture of glamorous and uncanny. Nonetheless, he is quite happy to talk, in his wryly calm and personable manner, … Read more
I have been passionate about music from a very young age. I felt an urge to play the saxophone thanks to the theme from The Pink Panther. Unfortunately, a four-year-old can’t hold let alone play the sax, but it turned out that the recorder has the same basic fingering as the sax. So I diligently … Read more
Martin Mackie is a singer and music producer from Belfast who has been living in Dublin for more than a decade. His latest single The Ballad of Christy Moore is a tribute, with a comical twist, to the Irish musical legend from Kildare. It is from Martin’s new album Temperance Songs, which will be released … Read more