“I was making these radio dramas, 45 to 50 minutes long and with really careful structures. I kept saying it would be great to make an album in the same way.”
Given that it’s been his chosen career for close to 20 years, it’s probably not all that astonishing that Dylan Tighe’s sophomore record would take its influence from theatre. That’s not to say that Wabi-Sabi Soul isn’t surprising for a whole host of reasons, though – and not least when compared to his debut LP.
“The core of this album was recorded in four days,” he reveals. “Record, on the other hand, was recorded sporadically across four years. I was having periods of breakdown due to emotional existential problems – a.k.a. mental health issues – which the album was addressing. It took a long time; the musicians never played in the same room. But when we performed live after that, we built a dynamic that wasn’t reflected on the recording. This time, I wanted to set myself a challenge of doing it differently.”
It wasn’t merely the timeline that changed. Recording the analogue tape, the stakes were heightened in the knowledge there wouldn’t be an infinite amount of takes to get it right. The music spreads its wings from bluesy meditations to tropical pomp, covering a multitude in-between. 
Most notable, though, is the fact that the album plays in one continuous stream. 
“I really like the experience of listening to an album right through, especially if it’s all around the same theme. In this instance, it’s a bit of a loose theme – love, death, and rebirth, and how they intertwine. So it was partly about trying to find a formal equivalent of that idea; how those ideas would combine, and bounce back, and reflect off each other. 
“The other part of it was practical,” he continues. “I didn’t want the album atomised, as happens digitally. When songs go on iTunes, they’re dispersed; on a CD, you can skip straight to track five. Only on vinyl is the cohesion of the listening experience maintained, and I wanted to see the update to that – how do you present a digital release that you don’t want people picking and choosing songs?”
While that explains why Wabi-Sabi Soul is an exclusively digital release, it probably doesn’t help those unfamiliar with Japanese philosophy in deciphering the title.
Wabi-Sabi is about embracing imperfection, and accepting transience,” Dylan explains. “It’s a snapshot of where I am spiritually right now. In fact, I think this album is just as much about existential crises of consciousness as the first record; it’s just that I haven’t chosen to label it in the same way.”
No matter how the album is labelled or understood, there’s no denying that it’s a very fine piece of work; complex without being convoluted, it’s an immersive 45 minutes. The album was recently showcased in style at a pair of events in Dublin: a 3D listening bash at the Light House Cinema, and a headphones concert at DLR Lexicon Library. Both were made possible by the support of the Arts Council, though Dylan’s first album stands as proof that there are any number of avenues left to explore.
“Record had a few different lives – a theatre show, a radio show for RTÉ, I was asked to write a chapter of a book…”
Given the quality of his new effort, who knows where Wabi-Sabi Soul might end up.