Dublin-based artist Keeley has released To a London Sunrise, a track from her latest EP, Echo Everywhere. We asked her the BIG questions . . .
She enjoyed a breakthrough last year, signing to Dimple Discs, releasing two EPs, and braving pandemic restrictions played several live dates with her band, which now includes highly regarded drummer Tim O'Donovan.
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To A London Sunrise is perhaps the most direct of Keeley’s ongoing dedication to the memory of Inga-Maria Hauser, the teenage German backpacker who was brutally murdered in Northern Ireland in 1988, a case that has yet to be solved and one of which Keeley has written extensively in her blog The Keeley Chronicles.
Tell us three things about yourself
Unusually for a musician and singer, I'm half-deaf. I had a couple of brain surgery operations and the second of these left me with no hearing in my left ear. Despite this drawback, I just get on with it, I've never allowed it to deter me.
I used to be able to hear my eyeballs move in their sockets! It was one of the symptoms of a very rare condition I suffered from for eight years called Superior Semi-circular Canal Dehiscence Syndrome. It's a very long story but I'm cured now, it was the reason I had to have the two brain surgeries.
I'm a concept artist and I'm currently making the first ever album to be made about a murder victim. In fact, not just one album, but an entire body of work. Unusually, I write only about one theme, and one person (Inga Maria Hauser, more about her below).
How would you describe your music?
I describe our live sound as psychedelic dreampop. It's an original, organic fusion of elements of psych-rock, dreampop and shoegaze. Our studio recordings are more diverse still, with elements of alt country and electronica interwoven, depending on what the song requires. I have an unashamedly pop sensibility to my song writing. But with staunch Indie values the bedrock that underpins everything. Our musical mission is to bliss people out and indeed our maxim is "bliss-out!" The idea for the band was born out of my vision to create music that has a blissful quality and that achieves a trance-like state, for us as much as the listener. I find that there is never enough music out there that has this ethereal essence I'm after as a listener. So, I felt I needed to put a band together that would make this music and take people (and ourselves) on a head-trip as a means of escapism from the stresses and straitjackets of everyday life. But being a Gemini, our live sound reflects the dual personality of that star sign, with squalling eruptions of fierce noise alternating with the blissful serenity of the rest of the set.
Who are your musical inspirations?
Oddly, my biggest musical inspiration by far is someone who never made a record and never played a gig in her life! A German artist, aspiring musician and student named Inga Maria Hauser who was tragically murdered in Northern Ireland in 1988. I first read about Inga in 2016 and very quickly became obsessed with her and her unsolved case, which led to my publishing the most extensive account of her case in my ongoing blog The Keeley Chronicles and becoming publicly involved in the campaign for justice on Inga's behalf. From the day I first read about her in 2016 I haven't written a song about anyone or anything else. Every note of my music and every word of my lyrics are written with her in mind and concern the myriad aspects of her life story and her unsolved case.
What was the first gig you ever went to and the first record you ever bought/downloaded?
The first gig I ever went to was Oasis. A beautiful barrage of noise, a blistering wall of sound. But I was so young, I had to get my mam to take me! I had never been in town on my own at night before then. I was totally captivated by the experience and from that moment onwards, being in a band and getting to swim in sound onstage or in a rehearsal room or recording studio would be all I'd ever want in life. That's still all I want, and all I believe in.
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The first record I ever bought with my own money was Genesis' We Can't Dance but the first record I ever asked for was Actually by Pet Shop Boys which is still one of my favourite albums to this day.
What's your favourite song right now?
Jump In, the latest single by Welsh Indie-Pop band The Darling Buds. It's a perfect pop song, with guitars that jangle joyously. And it ROCKS. Get on it.
Favourite lyric of all time?
There's two. The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow) by The Jam is my favourite single of all-time, and the lyrics are pure poetry, some of the most remarkable insights for the then 24-year-old Paul Weller to have been capable of writing at that relatively young age. Refreshingly, and unlike so many songs, it tells the truth with unflinching honesty about the reality of love and what romantic entanglements involve, which is ultimately misery, disaster, and humiliation (laughs).
"In your white lace and your wedding bells, You look the picture of contented new wealth, But from the on-looking fool who believed your lies, I wish this grave would open up and swallow me alive, For the bitterest pill is hard to swallow, The love I gave hangs in sad coloured, mocking shadows".
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And the other is Scream Thy Last Scream by Pink Floyd which I think has the most extraordinary lyrics ever written. "Scream thy last scream old woman with a casket, Blam blam your pointers point your pointers, Waddle with apples to crunchy Mrs. Stores, She'll be scrubbing bubbles on all fours, Scream thy last scream old woman with a casket!"
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Lay Me Down by The Mock Turtles. It has a hazy, dazed daydream quality I find it totally entrancing.
Where can people find your music/more information?
Our debut EP Brave Warrior is now in shops on CD and the 10" vinyl is available for pre-order online. Our second EP Echo Everywhere is out now in digital form, with a physical version to follow later in the year. All the videos we've made are on our YouTube channel which also features many interviews and live clips. I'm very active on social media, do all the posts on our socials. Bandcamp, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify. Follow us!
