Interview: Cheriff Bakala

Deadheading had the opportunity to chat with Cheriff Bakala, who was featured in the Al-Jazeera documentary “Sunday in Brazzaville”, about songwriting, the challenges of recording in the DRC, and plans for his next musical project.

DH: Quelle a été la première chanson que vous avez jamais écrite?
What was the first song you ever wrote?

CB: La première chanson que j’ai écris, était une chanson d’amour appelé AMOUR ; en cette période j’étais au collège et c’était mes premières poésie.
The first song I wrote was a love song called LOVE; during this time I was in school and it was my first (musical) verse.

DH: Vous avez continué à enregistrer votre album malgré des difficultés comme les coupures d’électricité dans le studio. Que pensez-vous être l’aspects le plus difficile de faire de la musique?
You continued to record your album despite difficulties such as power cuts in the studio. What do you think you are the most difficult aspects of making music?

CB: Malgré les coupures d’électricité ,nous avons continué à enregistrer notre album, car nous sommes déjà habitué de travailler dans de telles conditions . L’aspect le plus difficile en musique c’est la production et la promotion de nos œuvres , car composer une musique et faire son arrangement est une routine.
Despite the power cuts, we continued to record our album, because we are already used to working in such conditions. The most difficult aspect in music is the production and promotion of our works, because composing and arranging music is a routine.

DH: Comment décririez-vous la scène musicale actuelle à Brazzaville?
How would you describe the current music scene in Brazzaville?

CB: La scène musicale de Brazzaville à de l’engouement , le public est au rendez vous , mais les productions sont rares par manque de sponsors et subventions.
The music scene in Brazzaville is full of enthusiasm, the public is the place to be, but shows are scarce due to lack of sponsors and subsidies.

DH: Généralement, ce qui arrive d’abord quand vous écrivez: la musique, ou les paroles?
Generally, what comes first when you write: music, or lyrics?

CB: Généralement , quand j’écris ce sont les paroles qui arrivent avant par inspirations, et quand il y a la présence d’un instrument cela facilite la manière de composer.
Generally, when I write, it is the words which arrive before (musical) ideas, and when there is an instrument present, it facilitates composition.

DH: Y at-il jamais une disparité entre ce que vous avez l’intention d’écrire et ce que vous vous retrouvez avec?
Is there ever a disparity between what you intend to write and what you end up with?

CB: Non, il n’ y a pas de disparité, car il y a des chansons qui viennent par inspiration; donc assez facile á écrire et à composer. Le plus difficile, c’est quand on vous impose une thématique. Mais on s’en sort toujours.
No, there is no disparity, because there are songs which come about from being inspired; therefore, it is quite easy to write and compose. The hardest (way to write) is when you impose a theme, but we keep doing (it).

DH: Que préférez-vous: enregistrer ou jouer en direct?
What do you prefer: recording, or playing live?

CB: Je préfère jouer en direct, puisque l’émotion est plus forte du fait d’être en contact avec le publique.
I prefer to play live, because the emotion is stronger when in contact with the public.

DH: À quel moment avez-vous sérieusement commencé à envisager une carrière en musique?
When did you start to seriously consider a career in music?

CB: J’ai commencé à envisager une carrière en 2003, quand j’ai intégré l’un des grands de hip-hop de l’époque, LÉGITIME BRIGADE.
I began to consider a career (in music) in 2003, when I joined one of the greats of hip-hop at the time, LÉGITIME BRIGADE.

DH: Y at-il quelque chose que vous souhaitez que vous aviez connu quand vous avez commencé à jouer de la musique?
Is there anything you wish you had known when you started playing music?

CB: Quand j’ai commencé la musique, j’avais toujours voulu entreprendre une carrière professionnelle riche en tournée dans différents pays, pour des échanges culturelles passionnantes: dans le partage et la réception des expériences.
When I started music, I had always wanted to start a professional career with lots of touring in different countries, for exciting cultural exchanges: the sharing and receiving of experiences.

DH: Où trouvez-vous des influences pour votre musique?
Where do you find influences for your music?

CB: Ma musique est influencé par des sonorités Téké (Cong-Brazzaville ) mais aussi par les rythmiques Bémbé ,Kongo et nzobi de mon pays le Congo.
My music is influenced by Teké sounds (Cong-Brazzaville) but also by the the Bémbé [popular in festivities and celebrations], Kongo and the Nzobi [a ceremonial practice of seeking healing through music and dance] rhythms of my country, the Congo.

DH: Quels artistes vous inspirent le plus?
Which artists inspire you most?

CB: Les artistes qui m’inspirent sont: Franklin Boukaka (Congo-Brazzaville); Femi Kuti ( Nigeria ), et Michael Jackson (USA).
The artists who inspire me are: Franklin Boukaka (Congo-Brazzaville); Femi Kuti (Nigeria), and Michael Jackson (USA).

DH: Qu’avez-vous prévu pour l’année à venir?
What are you planning for the year ahead?

CB: Pour la prochaine année , je prévois un spectacle de musique-chant-théâtre axé sur les citations de Nelson Mandela. D’ailleurs en 2012 j’ai crée *Martin Luther King, apôtre de la non violence*sur les textes de King,puis *Sony la bombe à hydrogène* sur les textes de Sony Labou Tansi; aussi un nouvel album est en vue.
For the upcoming year, I am planning a musical theatre show focused on the passages and quotes of Nelson Mandela; in 2012, I created “Martin Luther King, Apostle of Non-Violence”, (based) on King’s texts, then “Sony’s Hydrogen Bomb” on the texts of Sony Labou Tansi. Also, a new album is in sight

DH: Pouvez-vous voir la musique toujours être votre objectif principal?
Can you see music always being your primary objective?

CB: Oui, je compte continuer dans la meme lancé pour des projets artistiques diverses: le coaching, les ateliers…
Yes, I intend to continue in the same way for (completing) various artistic projects: coaching, workshops…

DH: Qu’écoutez-vous le plus actuellement?
What are you listening to at the minute?

CB: Actuellement , j’écoute Jacques Loubelo (Congo) et Asa ( Nigeria).
Currently, I am listening to Jacques Loubelo (Congo) and Asa (Nigeria).

You can listen to more of Cheriff’s music featured in “Sunday in Brazzaville” here:

Interview: Lost Avenue

DH: What’s your favourite song to play live?

DH: How did you arrive at your current incarnation?






DL: It’s more intimate.

DH: What are you learning from recording this time?
DB: Unless you have six months to sit and mix.







DL: I’ve never heard it.
MB: Neither have I.



DH: Are you proud of your previous releases?
DL: I’m proud of “Daggers”.

DH: Is song writing typically a solo or communal affair?
DB: It’s a mix.

DB: Sometimes it sounds crazy-
MB: Sometimes it sounds terrible!

DL: We just keep playing it-
DL: He’s only been in the band for six months!






(MB has to leave early)


DL: Unless it’s really good.



DH: When are you hoping to release these singles?


DB: That’s our own label.








DB: Playing live. It’s what we do.


DH: What’s the best gig that you’ve ever played?


DH: What about your worst gig?




DH: What are you currently listening to?
DL: Shite. No Means No, Descendents, Fugazi.
DL: Smashing Pumpkins as well.
DL: Dirty guitar and dirty bass- it’s so grungy.

DL: They’re class.

DL: Every blink album.

DH: Is there anything that you wish I’d asked?
DL: Ah, stuff on direct influences?

DH: Go for it!


DB: The first one was the best.


You can now stream Lost Avenue’s EP “Daggers”here:

You can also keep up with them on the following channels.


Twitter: @wearelostavenue

Instagram: @wearelostavenue


Interview: East India Youth

Deadheading got to talk to William Doyle of East India Youth before his first show in Belfast about playing his last “Culture of Volume” shows, Brian Eno, and gardening.

DH: What’s your favourite song to play live?

WD: “Hinterland”, probably. It’s a bit obvious, maybe, but it’s like the dance peak of the set, and I’ve worked out a way to play it that it’s kind of different every time. It’s a very malleable thing- some of the songs are a bit more rigid, and that’s fine, but with “Hinterland” I’ve gotten to that point of the set where I can just let go and sort of enjoy it, I think it makes a big difference, so that’s always going to be my favourite to play. It really gets the blood pumping, so yeah.

DH: Are you sick of playing “Culture of Volume” yet, and do you find that having to continually engage with each song has changed how you perceive them?

WD: I am, yeah. It’s been so long now; the first album came out the year before last, and it was about a year before “Culture of Volume” came out, so it’s just been non-stop touring. I’m not bored or sick of it, I’m just having to invent new ways to make it interesting again, I think, and it’s getting harder and harder as the tour sort of winds down. I’ve been doing this version of the set for a year, like what with the gear and stuff I’ve got on stage, so it’s time for a change, but it’s a bit late in the day to bring in a massive C change now.

I was sound checking some of my old songs that I haven’t played for a while today, but it didn’t feel right. There’s always a mixture of the two records, but I was going to play the “Total Strife Forever”, the sweeps, the instrumental strings, but it’s not quite where I thought it was. I haven’t played it in a year and a half, maybe, so I’m a little bit rusty with it, but I’m quite keen to bring back that part of what I do, just offset the pop moments with something that bit more abrasive.

I just think that the pop thing hasn’t worked out as well as they thought it would. I love pop music, and I always think there will be a melodic focus to what I’m doing, and I just thought after working on things that would become “Culture of Volume”, it was like, oh, it seems like it’s becoming more of a vocal-led album and it’s more pop-focused, but the longevity hasn’t really been there with the material in quite the same way.

In terms of how I feel about the material, I feel there’s some moments of “Culture of Volume” that I love, and there’s other moments that really aren’t doing it for me any more. Like “Beaming White”, it just seems like this empty shell of a song to me. I think that one was the main pop experiment, and I wanted to do a Pet Shop Boys sort of thing, and I think it worked, but what it’s loosely about doesn’t really hold much of my interest now.

With “Culture of Volume”, I don’t really feel like the person that made that album any more, even though the period during making “Total Strife Forever” was much weirder and more emotionally ridiculous, I feel like it’s closer to my intentions generally. The thing is, the idea that every statement you make artistically is this definitive thing that you have to stand by forever is kind of crazy, you know, your feelings develop, so I might feel differently about that.

I went through a bit of a rut with “Total Strife Forever” for a while, and I guess your opinions change and playing things live over and over again, they develop in different ways. I’m all about having a relationship with the songs; they’re not just this passive blob of a thing.

Maybe not with “Culture of Volume”, because I think it’s still too new to have that distance from it. “Total Strife Forever” has renewed itself in ways I didn’t think it was going to. There were songs like “Turn Away” that I feel, like, some of the lyrics were things came true after I’d written it, rather than things that happened while I was writing it, which is a bizarre thing to happen, but it happened a couple of times with that album, and maybe that’s why I have this weird emotional relationship with it, because “Total Strife Forever” was all about that moment and what happened prior to it, whereas “Culture of Volume” still feels like it predicted things going forward.

You can’t not draw from personal experience- I don’t write fiction or narrative based stuff, but obviously I don’t really like to ascribe one song as being this particular moment or memory or person or whatever, like they’re influenced by those things, but they’re a bit more abstract in that, I think that’s what I wanted to do. You paint an atmosphere rather than try to capture a specific moment, maybe.

DH: Do you find that you approach writing with more of an ambient sensibility than anything else?

WD: Yeah, for me, it’s all about creating an environment. Eno’s always a good example of someone who’s able to create an environment with what they do. Everything’s interpreted by people, and that’s what it’s there for rather than you forcing a meaning onto someone else, you give them enough tools and they’re able to build this environment themselves, so that’s more exciting to me.

DH: What made you decide to add vocals to “Culture of Volume”?

WD: Playing live, and getting more comfortable with my voice and enjoying that aspect of it, and in the next one too, you know you’re going to end up touring the next thing for a year or however long, and I wanted to convey that a bit more live. It was a challenge as well; I pushed my voice a lot more than I did previously. It’s just grown into this thing that I didn’t really think it would, like I love singing, it’s one of my favourite things to do, so I just wanted to create more opportunities for me to do it, I guess.

DH: What comes first when you write songs, the lyrics or the melody?

WD: Melody, always. I hated putting lyrics to songs before, but I’ve worked out a new way to do it; because I haven’t been able to write too much music on the road, I’ve been writing a lot more poems and stuff like that, and I’ve been training my brain to write things down within that form, and you start to worry less about rhythm and rhyme and stuff like that. The words are more important, so I’ve been writing them first and then fitting them before I’ve even written the rest of the song sometimes. It’s just attacking it from a different side, it’s been so much more enjoyable lately, and the words are so much better at the moment, so that’s good. I’m glad I’ve been able to figure that one out because I really hated writing the lyrics sometimes.

I got most stuck on “Beaming White”, and maybe that’s it, it’s always the easiest songs that flow out of you, like “Heaven How Long” and “Carousel” are my two favourite songs of mine, in terms of everything they give, and they’re the ones that happened the easiest, I suppose.
Things change so much anyway- sometimes the song has been written and then the arrangement changes or maybe it becomes a different style of track, so I don’t know, it’s a fluid thing.

DH: How much do you use oblique strategising as a means of writing?

WD: Not very much. I actually told Eno that I don’t find it that helpful! They’re interesting, and I think as time’s gone on I’ve employed them more than I would have otherwise, but I think they’re things that I memorise, but when you use them in the traditional way and pull them out randomly, I actually don’t find them that helpful then, I find them frustrating, because it’s sometimes like, “Go outside and shut the door.”, and I know it’s meant to promote lateral thinking, but I can’t really interpret that one.

Some of them have made a lot more sense to me over time; at the moment what we do in my house, I stick them on the front porch, and when you open the front door there’s two doors that go into the living room, so we’ve got one on each door at the moment, so we shift them around a bit, and when you come in you think about them , and they’ve helped more in terms of that, but I didn’t use them a lot during “Culture of Volume”.

DH: You met Brian Eno. How did you find that experience?

WD: It doesn’t really get much better than that for me. In terms of people, I think I’ve learnt more from him than from any other artist, you know, from reading their interviews and getting into their music and stuff like that, so that was kind of it for me, but then again, it’s always the people that you don’t expect to have an impact on you that do.

DH: I hadn’t realised that you play everything yourself during live shows. Do you find it liberating or frustrating to be the only one on stage?

WD: The more into it you get, the more you forget that you’re the only person up there. It depends how well the show is going really, if the crowd are into it then I find myself in my own space, and it doesn’t make much difference that there aren’t any other people up there. There’s a lot to do, but you get used to it. It took some time initially, especially with the set up that we’ve got now- I think we debuted this set up this time last year, so we’ve just been doing that, but at that point it was like, “There’s so much to do, there’s drum bits here, and bass guitar!”- but now it’s more like second nature, and I enjoy it a bit more, but I think it’s always important to keep changing it up. The next record will be a different thing; there might be other musicians as well, but I think that’s going to take a long time to come together, as I haven’t formed a super group in my head yet, so we’ll see how it goes.

DH: What are you planning to do with your time off?

WD: Carry on working actually, but just not touring. I’m setting up some collaborations at the moment, writing with other people, trying to do bits and pieces like that, but I’m doing all the visuals myself for the next project, so it’s going to take a while, because I’m out of my depth with that stuff. I don’t know what I’m doing with it, so I’m taking a year to do it, so yeah, maybe I’ll actually go on a holiday or something like that, but that seems like a weird idea- it’d be nice to go somewhere on holiday rather than go there to play a gig.

DH: You were previously a member of “Doyle and the Fourfathers”. Do you miss being in a band?

WD: No. I mean, I miss the guys, but I don’t miss being in that band. I miss playing with other musicians regularly, like that is an exciting thing to do, and it’s a shame that I haven’t been able to work that into what I do now, but it’s a necessity really. Like I say, hopefully I will be doing more of that. But no, I think the problem with that band is, and any band you’re in your teens, it was like, “We’re going to get signed!”, and all that, and there’s an aspiration to do those things, which is great, because that keeps you going, but also you miss the point as to what’s enjoyable.

If I was to do something like that now, it would have to be more of a non-committal thing, and I’d have to enjoy doing it, because I just stopped enjoying being in a band, but I do miss playing with people. With that band, I was 18 or 19, and it was all ego- like you don’t realise it at the time, but when you grow up you realise how stupid you might have been at some points, but I’m over that now.

DH: What was the first song that you ever learnt to play?

WD: I started off on violin actually, because it was available to learn at school. I guess it gave me that basic knowledge of frets to transfer onto guitar. I couldn’t play it now, but I think it was Scarborough Fair (on the violin), but the first song that I learnt on guitar was probably Green Day or something.

DH: What would you be doing if you weren’t playing music professionally?

WD: A gardener. Some friends asked me this recently, because it was part of a conversation that we were having, so I don’t know, there’s something similar between cultivating something and trying to put beautiful things out into the world, which is what I think you’re always trying to do with making art, but there’s less judgement with gardening- like, no one’s going to have a go at you on Twitter, or at least if they did, you’d have to respect them for it.

DH: Do you find that using software helps or inhibits the creative process?

WD: Helps, but only because I’m used to it. I’ve been playing with it for like ten years now, since I was fourteen or fifteen, I just had some software and didn’t really know what I was doing, so I started off with and still love Cubase. It’s through necessity that you learn it, so I now find it easy to translate ideas into reality using software. I’m not really a hardware or gear person, like I don’t own any synthesisers really and I’m not interested in doing it. Ryan (Vail) was talking to me about the gear that he’s got set up on stage, and I’m like, “It looks cool to do me, and this can do some cool stuff!”, but I’m just not really interested in it. I don’t even consider myself as an electronic musician really, I think of myself as a songwriter, I suppose, and I’ve used electronic music as the vehicle for that.

DH: When did you first get into electronic music?

WD: Just through playing with software and stuff, really, I just happened upon electronic sounds. I didn’t really listen to electronic music at the time- maybe it was Beck or someone like that, or the idea of all that overlay and sampling and stuff like that, it came more through that. I mean “(Midnite) Vultures” is quite an electronic record in itself as well, and “The Information” was too, but there wasn’t a particular moment. I mean, I’ve had plenty of epiphanies with it, but I don’t think of it as being electronic music always, because I don’t really think of Eno as being wholly electronic- he’s an artist who uses synthesis and stuff, but I don’t think of it as being electronic. I think we’re able to use software in a way to build error into things now, and that gives it this human quality. I think building that into it is important to do always, because it creates interesting, unpredictable moments, and that’s what leads you to conclusions, and that’s what makes things sound human when you’re dealing with electronic music and synthesis and software.

DH: What’s been the most frustrating aspect of being a musician professionally?

WD: Touring. I enjoy it, and you make it work for you, definitely, but I’ve found it frustrating in the last year or so that I haven’t been able to write or create on the road, and like, you fly into somewhere the day before the show, you play the show, and you fly back out afterwards, and it takes you three days to do one gig, and I can’t do any other work, and you barely see any of the places that you go to.

I don’t like to be moaning, because I do get to go to such incredible places and meet brilliant people and play to wonderful audiences, and that’s the best part of it, but sometimes the more tedious parts do start to outweigh all that. But it’s just another creative challenge to be able to solve, “How can you make this interesting for yourself?”, so we just try to go and see as much as we can whenever we can, eat interesting food and try interesting beers and whatever. We’ve had an amazing time the last three years, touring together, but it’s just that the touring doesn’t always agree with what I want to do creatively.

DH: What are you listening to at the minute?

WD: I had a good listen to “Blackstar” today. It’s really good, it’s brilliant. It’s a shame that he didn’t release more weird stuff like that until the end, because it had so much to offer, it’s a really strange album. Like “The Next Day” had some weird parts, but it was straightforward, and this has atonal sax solos, and the phrasing of the vocal is completely off from what’s happening in the rhythm section, but it’s just a really dense and beautiful thing, and it feels like a shame that he wasn’t doing more of that. No one’s made a record that sounds like that.

So that mainly, at the moment going back to an album called “Quarantine” by Laurel Halo, she’s amazing, she’s one of the best, and that album especially has been one of the most important records for me the last few years, so I gave it a bit of a break, but it’s an amazing record, and it’s got one of the best album covers that I’ve ever seen. It’s quite a weird record, but it’s incredible.

DH:Is there anything that you wish I’d asked you?

WD: Eh, no. Don’t think so!

You can buy Culture of Volume at and catch East India Youth’s last Irish performance until 2017 at the Button Factory in Dublin.

Interview: And So I Watch You From Afar








DH: How did you feel about your homecoming show?






DH: What is the worst tour you’ve ever been on?






























DH:What are your plans for the next year?




DH: Have you found any experience surreal so far?


DH: What, if anything, would you do differently?




DH: What are you currently listening to?





Interview: Axis Of




DH: How did the tour with Frank Iero come about?

DH: What kind of an experience was touring with him?



DH: What’s the worst tour that you’ve ever been on?
NL: I think it’s better looking at it through gigs.



NL: Yeah, I think it came naturally.

EF: Any band, ever? Yeah, Queen.
NL: Would you like The Clash more?






DH: What comes first: the lyrics or the music?




EF: That’s a great question. You think there is?

DH: Is creative control something that’s very important to you?



DH: Have you found any experience surreal so far?

DH: How did the Prospect Roads podcast come about?

DH: What, if anything would you do differently?

DH: What are you currently listening to?

EF: Well, we’ve never had any choice.
EF: Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.

EF: The Clash, definitely.

DH: Have you ever actually visited the Mid Brae Inn?

DH: Is there anything that you wish I’d asked you?



Interview: Rainy Boy Sleep



DH: Was the censoring your idea?

DH: When are you planning to release Waiting Games?

DH: Will there be any other singles in the meantime?











DH: Are you self-taught?

DH: How old were you when you started playing music?



















DH: What does the next year hold for you?

DH: Are you sick of playing the first album yet?
SM: Um, no.

DH: Are you allowed to say that?






DH: Have you found anything surreal so far?

DH: Have you been recognised yet?

DH: What are you currently listening to?


DH: Is there anything that you wish I’d asked you?


Deadheading Digs…

“Deadheading Digs” is a new feature, intended to publicise any recent releases that have proved themselves to be ear worms and deserve to be heard by you, the clamouring, music-hungry masses.

“Red” – More than Conquerors

Belfast-based quartet, the almighty More Than Conquerors, are back. The rhythm-driven, yet almost elegiac “Red” is their first release of 2015, and is evocative of Fugazi, but with greater lyricism and slicker production. They are currently touring the UK, and I strongly advise that you check them out before they take off (they are due to appear at SXSW in Texas later this year).

“Manchester Post” – Rainy Boy Sleep

Flying the flag for folktronica is Rainy Boy Sleep. “Manchester Post” is the first single from his forthcoming album, “Waiting Games” (which is his debut, and will be released with Universal Music, no less), and it is nothing short of smashing. Pleasantly melodic, but with biting, acerbic shreds of wit interspersed throughout, his flawless writing and delivery is matched only by Reuben Keeney’s sharp production.

“Sirens” – Silent Noise Parade

Stalwarts of consistently innovative, alternative electronic, Silent Noise Parade have just released the brilliant “Sirens”. Minimalist, emotive, and something of a slow-burner, this is an incredibly rewarding track (think Brian Eno by way of Irish post-punk) that is bound to keep you hitting the replay button.

“Peanut Butter” – Krill

Hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, Krill are a trio that create exceedingly great, pseudo-psych, guitar-based rock, and are leaving a slew of equally eccentric sounds and URLs in their wake (for instance, see their Bandcamp and Twitter links). “Peanut Butter” is catchy, diverse, tinged with dark, garage-rock undertones, and is further evidence, if any were needed, of their being destined for big things. They’re are about to release their third album, the much anticipated “A Distant Fist Unclenching”, and are currently touring Europe.

(I’d also like to take this opportunity to apologise to frontman/bassist Jonah Furman, in case any offence was caused by a tweet of mine. Your vocals on this track are, to me, evocative of Kim Gordon, and that is intended as a compliment.)

Live Review: Portrush Brawl, 29th December 2014


Monday 29th December 2014- the Atlantic Bar, Portrush







Live Review: SOAK, 7th November 2014

SOAK with support from Gabriel Paschal Blake

Friday 7th November 2014- Christ Church, Derry

If you aren’t familiar with “SOAK”, you probably haven’t seen too much but the underside of your rock for a while. The Derry-based Bridie Monds-Watson, who goes by the pseudonym “SOAK” (a portmanteau of “soul” and “folk”, despite it being difficult to pigeonhole her music based on such broadly defined trace elements) recently embarked on her “B a NoBody” tour, which encompassed venues of varying capacity in both the UK and Ireland. The penultimate show in Christ Church, Derry, was the first date that she had played in Derry for almost a year, and put a definitive end to the recent dry spell that the city had been experiencing.

As neither of us are overly familiar with Derry, upon my plus one enquiring of the venue “Are there like, pews?”, I made the mistake of laughing confidently. However, after two hours of resting rigidly upon a wooden pew, my joints and I were certainly no longer laughing. As it turned out, Gabriel Paschal Blake, a lyrical acoustic act hailing from Letterkenny, wasn’t much in the form for mirth either. His songs regale rambling tales of woe that would rival a lot of early (and overly emotive) LiveJournal entries. Boasting misleadingly cheery titles such as “My Father the Undertaker”, Blake’s songs are, admittedly, brimming with emotional depth and lyrical prowess beyond his years.

His stage presence transcends the stage (in the sense that he sporadically leaves it in order to engage further with the audience) and his vocal delivery doubles as a crash course in theatrical melodrama. What his songs may lack in conciseness is compensated for by his (almost worryingly raw) enthusiasm- unfortunately though, his highly ambitious reach just exceeds his grasp. I feel the need to point out that posing questions like “Does everyone die the same way?” for a few (fairly extensive) verses only to eventually conclude that, on second thoughts, “Not everyone dies the same way.” is possibly not the best formula for building rapport with an audience.

Taking to the stage with minimal preamble and a quiet confidence, SOAK exudes natural ease and ability, and chose to kick off the proceedings with “Explosions”. It is a gentle, understated opening track, and oozes ambience, with lulled arpeggios and her murmurings of “your heart” resounding continually off of the dimly illuminated walls. The atmosphere verges on ethereal, between her otherworldly music and black-clad, nymph-like stature, which is only accentuated by the purple and green candlelight.

Followed by the wonderfully wistful “Sea Creatures”, her vocals are delicate and harmonise beautifully with the earnest acoustic melody, all of which again contrasts sharply with the fluid, arresting lyrics. Coming from anybody else, “I prayed for you/And you know I don’t like Jesus” would most likely be written off as an attempt at being knowingly self-conscious, but when it’s coming from SOAK, you can’t help but be drawn into empathising with her lightly lilting plight.

The lesser known tracks, “Worry” and “Blind” are also rather well received by the enraptured audience- SOAK could easily remain silent between songs and still win over any crowd, but instead, she chatters with great ease, conveying her sincere appreciation and dispersing snippets of information about her recent tour and each individual song.
Next up, and setting the scene for some serious soul-searching, is the beautifully melancholic “24 Windowed House”. We are privy to hearing that it was written with the intention of stepping back and looking at someone by means of “different parts of them, like they’re a house, and you’re looking at them and bits of their personality through like, different windows”. The song is, despite its unusually ambitious concept, pleasantly articulate: brooding in nature, but open in its evident affection for the subject. Her delivery is nothing short of stunning: the crystallised sweep of her vocal range combined with the soulful strumming on her acoustic is absolutely mesmerising, and a pleasure to behold.

Having recently hit a whopping one million plays on Spotify,“B a noBody” is a no-brainer of a crowd pleaser. It is recreated live with no difficulty whatsoever, which is something of a rarity for any current artist, and only demonstrates further her infallible talent. The song alludes to something of a paradox, in that SOAK seems to take a variation of pride in being a self-proclaimed “nobody”, when in fact, she is considered not only a somebody, but one that is certainly of note, by fans and critics alike: she recounts having fans steal the black helium balloons from the previous night’s show in London; being invited to a Burberry launch party; and more recently, has received a nomination for the BBC’s Sound of 2015.

The emotive “Blud”, which was dedicated to a friend who recently passed away, was declared to be the last song of the evening. It is evocative of Beach House, and would have been a rather fitting ending to such a heartfelt set. However, needing little persuasion (in which the crowd are more than happy to indulge- I highly doubt that this is a church that has echoed with chants of “One more tune!” prior to this evening), SOAK obliges with a much appreciated encore.
Featuring “Reckless Behaviour”, which is “probably” going to be her next single, but regardless of release date, is bound to be a sure-fire hit. Filled with clever hooks, and complete with a rather catchy refrain, it is definitely a release to look forward to.

Finally, switching up her acoustic for an electric guitar, “Oh Brother” runs in a darker, but nonetheless thrilling, vein. Frankly, it is bewitching to witness a talent so versatile, and yet so distinctive. Upon seeing her perform, the fact that SOAK has become so well established in a relatively short space of time is of no surprise, especially when you take into consideration her incredible natural ability. She is an artist truly deserving of the surrounding hype, and her musical prowess is already remarkable- it is simply an added bonus that she will only continue to hone her existing skills, as both a performer and as a songwriter, and that Derry is fortunate enough to be able to lay claim to having produced such a brilliant young talent.

Live Review: Rainy Boy Sleep, 24th October 2014

Rainy Boy Sleep with support from Chelsey Chambers
Friday 24th October 2014 – Mason’s, Derry







