In Issue 6 of Dig With It magazine, we profiled the shortlisted albums for the NI Music Prize. The list arrived shortly before the press deadline and with a further, dramatic stroke, the two additional public choices for album of the year came in at the very last moment.
You can order up the for Music Prize special in the magazine here. But here is the gist of it – a wonderful array of records, Nordy singularity, ambition and style.
Thanks to the Dig With It contributors whose reviews and interviews we quote from. Geat work, all.
Gender Chores play a version of ‘Brand New House’ by Mob Wife. Later in the night, Mob Wife play the song again, but somehow make it sound like Gender Chores. A tribute to a tribute. Everybody cheers. Good work, Bangers ‘N’ Mash (Ups).
Remember when Joshua Burnside put out a momentous album last year and we wondered how cool it would be if we ever witnessed it live? Well, here’s the time. It’s the first of three sold-out nights at the Sports Club, as Belfast gets weirdly to terms with unchecked, unmasked gigs in tight proximity to mates and musicians.
The cover is a painting of prog-rock era Peter Gabriel, imagined by Britpop misanthropist Luke Haines. The record is made in Derry by an established, Anglo blow-in. The songs are furious in parts but mostly peeved and petulant. They seem to be sited in some wind-lashed, provincial sinkhole, frequented by ruffians, poseurs and bald adolescents. Welcome back, 
We meet in a park on the south side of Dublin Bay. The clouds are up and we talk loosely about band rehearsals, bicycle maintenance and the joy that a teenage Conor J. O’Brien once found in a new Radiohead release, saving up his first listen of Kid A for the morning before school.
Three festival events in three months – Stendhal have kept the nerves steady and made a momentous case for music, camping and people getting delighted, outdoors. From a trial gig in June and then a couple of roaring days in July, the ultimate was always a showdown in August with multiple live stages, 5,000 visitors and a tenth birthday party of jubilant proportions.
Parkside Grooming is an animal-primping business near Wanstead Flats in East London. If you pet can fit in the big bath, then it it’s good to groom. Alternately, ‘Parkside Grooming’ is an EP by Lou Price. He’s still a feature with the band Swimming Tapes and he had previous form with a fine act from Bangor called Kowalski. He’s just made this lovely collection of tunes that tends towards melancholia. It features sweet, chiming guitar to please Johnny Marr fans plus surprise chord moves.
Ryan McMahon has the best lockdown hair in Inhaler. Lank yet a bit elegant. Ryan doesn’t speak that often but when he does, it’s cool and declarative. No confidence issues with the guy. He’s not like the drummers you often meet. And now he’s about to lean forward on the sofa, centre-left of the band formation and he’s going to say stuff about the new record that will cause his colleagues to laugh, at the loose audacity of it all.
We have little time to absorb all this because now they are playing ‘Lily Yeats’ and Lyndsey is fixing on another troublesome issue – the relegation of female artists, the write-offs and the repression. Again, the volume rises and although the players may look nonchalant, they are acutely in synch. Those guitar crunches plus the stop-time and the moments when everything flies at once – none of this is accidental.
The Saturday plans for Stendhal have also gifted us the lightness of Laytha, two sure voices on ‘What Will I Gain’. The song considers family, hopes and a place to belong. Dolores O’Riordan is smiling, somewhere. Another tune, ‘Strawberry Moon’ was completed after a drink-fuelled Zoom quiz but you might believe that it came from a lakeside walk by Windermere. Laytha also support the Free Britney movement by playing ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, with feeling.
The new agenda is represented by ‘Always Back To You’ there is love and vindication and smiles. The sapphire costume catches the light and the wooden pilings around the stage make it look like a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Quite the achievement. Sasha says so long, farewell with her old fave, ‘Broken Vessels’, which already sounds like juvenilia. It’s moving along.
Cormac Neeson plays out from his White Feather record and a few tunes from The Answer. “Let’s just never leave here,” he figures. Nearby, Reevah is at the Henry McCullough stage with a coral blue Fender guitar, setting ‘Daydreamer’ free, a measure of sorrow and poise and spirit of Stevie Nicks.
That’s a lot of stories and a lifetime of conversation. But we appreciate the sentiment. Rory has his own response, though. It hinges on two pieces. ‘A Little Bit of Solidarity Goes a Long Way’ is a reminder of how things were in 2008. The music scene was pulling together but the economic crash was imminent. The banking system was busting us yet music was holding firm, sustaining our hearts. And that tune will always be a guide to collective action and the affirming value of the arts.
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