Irish singer-songwriter Pearse McGloughlin has released his new EP, The Falls, "an exploration of sound, memory, and transformation." We asked him the BIG questions . . .
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Released through Urchin Music and Bluestack Records, The Falls sees McGloughlin collaborate with poets Danez Smith, Hollie McNish, Colm Keegan, Felicia Olusanya, and Erin Fornoff.
Speaking about the new project, he says, "In September 2023, I did sound design for a show called Ireland Is. This was a poetry show spearheaded by the poet Colm Keegan and Sofft Productions.
"It featured Danez Smith, Erin Fornoff, Felicia Olusanya, Hollie McNish and Colm Keegan. I composed about 30 pieces to accompany the poems which ranged from the political to the personal and delved into a broad emotional spectrum.
"I had recently completed a course in Music Production in Griffith College in Dublin and in a sense the Ireland Is show gave me a chance to tap into my newly acquired skillzzzz."
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I'm a songwriter from Sligo and now living in Dublin. I've released six albums on Urchin Music and Bluestack Records. My upcoming release, The Falls, differs from my previous albums in that it is a collection of soundscapes rather than songs. They were initially realised to complement the spoken word poetry show Ireland Is.
How would you describe your music?
Delicate, melodic, lyrical, atmospheric but with a bit of bite. RTÉ has described it as ‘meditative folk noir’ which I like!
Who are your musical inspirations?
My music is very much based in songs so I love songwriters like Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave.... I love interesting production with woozy atmospheres too so I also might sound a bit like Bon Iver, Bright Eyes or Sufjan Stevens.
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What was the first gig you ever went to?
Michael Jackson in Lansdowne Road in 1992 which was an unbelievable show.
What was the first record you ever bought?
I think it was Definitely Maybe by Oasis. Before that I taped too many albums (without killing the music industry!).
What’s your favourite song right now?
Oh, such a tough question. I saw Fionn Regan in Dublin recently and went on a binge of his work after the show. There's a song on his new album, O Avalanche, and there's a little melody at about 2:50 to 3:00 that I could listen to on repeat. It goes right into the soul. So beautiful.
Favourite lyric of all time?
Too many to mention but I like this from Phosphorescent’s Song for Zula: "You see the moon is bright in that treetop night, I see the shadows that we cast in the cold clean light, My feet are gold and my heart is white, And we race right out on the desert plains all night, See, honey I am not, some broken thing, I do not lay here in the dark waiting for thee, No, my heart is gold, my feet are light, And I'm racing out on the desert plains all night".
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A few years ago, I did a concept album about Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot with a musician friend of mine, Justin Grounds. He put me on to Lhasa De Sela's album, The Living Road. The album was recorded in Montreal at the same time that I was living there. The last song on the record is called Soon This Space Will Be Too Small. It’s a song about birth and death which is made all the more resonant by her own early death a few short years after making the album. A very beautiful artist.
Where can people find your music/more information?
You can find my music on Bandcamp, on digital retailers and my website.
Alan Corr
