Northern Exposure

The Northern Ireland music scene has never been in ruder health. As another year stretches ahead, your humble correspondent makes his predictions as to who is going to make it to the top in 2012.

Colin Carberry, 19 Jan 2012

If we must do the 2012 thing, then I suppose it’s full disclosure time: I’ve mixed form as a tipster. When it comes to top goalscorers in big soccer competitions (Baros, Klose, Villa, Forlan), I’m your boy. When it comes to almost everything else (I always thought the Euro sounded like a good idea) you’d best steer clear. So, please don’t think of the following names as tips. Consider them instead as a heads-up. A tap on the elbow. A flagged email.

But not tips. Definitely not tips. 

Steve Scullion is obviously not one to stay at home drinking gin to Scott 4 after a big split. In fact, considering how quickly he’s bounced back from Cat Malojian’s break-up, he’d more likely be found hitting town with a new haircut. His debut solo (or Malojian) EP – The Broken Deer – is a brilliantly reassuring record, proving that one of our finest songwriters hasn’t allowed the dissolution of a much cherished partnership knock him off creative stride.

On those occasions when we bump into Pat Dam Smyth in the street (and when he’s riding around on an old BMX, it’s hard to avoid him) we tend to find the guy more keen to talk about the movies of Altman and Lumet than his own Kinks-infused material. Which is ironic, once you consider the depth of biographical detail that went into last year’s pop epic, The Great Divide. We’ve heard one or two snippets from his current work-in-progress and all I can say is: long may his DVD collection reign. If 2011 was a great creative year for the Pat, 2012 could top it.

Observers of the ASIWYFA mother ship will no doubt have noticed an escape pod detach itself as the Gangs tour came to a close. Tony Wright, one of the band’s founding members and chief propagandists, chose quite a moment to launch off solo: leaving the group (literally) with a stage dive at the Belfast Music Awards in the Ulster Hall. His new project – VerseChorusVerse – couldn’t really be any more different from his old mob, driven as it is by slow acoustics and melancholia. However, it would be wrong to presume that Wright has gone all slow-core and wounded wing on us; no – there’s a confidence and seriousness of purpose in his new material that marks out VCV as proper contenders. It’s a small noise that could make a big noise this year.

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Colin Carberry

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