Dublin modern folkie releases new video ahead of album
Dublin’s Patrick O’Laoghaire, aka I Have A Tribe, has announced the release of his debut album ‘Beneath A Yellow Moon’, on May 27 via Grönland Records (Susanne Sundfor, Gang Of Four, Boy). It follows 2015’s ‘No Countries’ EP and will be supported by a European tour, having previously toured with the likes of Villagers, James Vincent McMorrow and Anna Calvi.
Produced by Paul Savage (Mogwai, Twilight Sad, Dry The River etc) and recorded in Glasgow, the album’s eleven tracks are perhaps the most sparse and understated collection of songs that IHAT has released to date. Where previous EPs, including O’Laighaire’s collaboration with Villagers’ Conor O’Brien on 2014’s ‘Yellow Raincoats’, were lush and layered, this debut LP is consciously stripped back and measured. The logic was simple when heading into the studio: abandon perfection, embrace spontaneity and, ultimately, capture the moment. Creaking floorboards are audible; piano-tinkering is a constant theme; and I Have A Tribe’s songs – which always seem to come draped in O’Laoghaire’s smile – are more intense and contagious than ever.
This approach was inspired, in part, by his two-year-old niece’s intuitive and playful striking of the piano keys and impromptu belting out of random notes: “she sits at the piano and bangs the keys with her fingers or her toes and she sings and shouts the first notes that come into her head. There’s a lot to be said for that. Sometimes they’re the right ones. And even if they’re not – well at least she has a good laugh while she plays.“ Patrick sums up: “the game was to play with abandon, like a kid”.
To Patrick, music is not dissimilar to painting. “Buddy Holly”, for instance, is based on an eight-year-old script that he made into a canvas and then painted in with his very own colours. It’s fitting then, given the colourful nature of this debut album, that an array of colours adorns the cover as well. Artist and close friend Dave Hedderman, who splits time between Dublin and Berlin, painted the cover art and, as it happens, owns the Berlin bedroom where album closer “Cuckoo” was written. As for the album’s title, well, that is simply an ode to a moment, much like the songs on the album, as described by O’Laoghaire: “The moon each evening above the studio was so beautiful and yellow”.
Whilst, if the plan was to “play with abandon, just like a kid”, he’s done just that on ‘Beneath a Yellow Moon’. His song-writing is free and the album is full of vibrancy, whilst this childish joy is deeply embedded in the fabric of the songs. That is no coincidence. Paul Savage’s studio is a room brimming with toys, and the two of them grabbed everything they could get their hands on and just played.
