Limerick dance-trance merchants Radars were formed in the murky balm of the (now defunct) Xeric studios, where Monaghan-born bass player Fergal O Neill was engineering most of Pearse Gilmore s Murgatroid acts, and drummer Tony Roche had been doing session work with a rock band. The two discovered a similar penchant for beats n bleeps, and Tony, who had a background in both rock and dance scenes (he d been playing percussion at raves and in clubs for some time) then introduced keyboard player Graham Conway to the fray.
I was in an acid jazz band with him, doing jazz standards and funky stuff as well, Graham explains, over coffee in the bar of Bloom s Hotel. Conway and O Neill are still recovering from backstage hi-jinx at the previous night s Corrs bash in The Point, and are gamely trying to outline their group s origins for the benefit of your reporter.
Basically the way we got together was I always sampled stuff and did my own thing, Fergal explains. Then the three of us got together and we were going to go for an instrumental thing for a while, but then we wanted to get an actual vocalist, so we got Jenny (McMahon). We clicked straight away, we were lucky. We didn t need to try anyone else.
Jenny might be absent from today s interview, but the University of Limerick student gives the ensemble a visual and vocal focal point, making Radars less an experiment in modern recording than a fully-fledged live band.
The first gig we did was in October, Graham says, and since then we ve had pretty much a full set. It gives you more of your own unique sound, it s more organic or something, just sitting in a room jamming. Before that in the studio, the actual writing was more clinical.
The fruits of those studio sessions can be heard on the band s two singles Shine and Another Day (the latter is also available in 12 vinyl format). Over the course of both CDs, the combo encompass the full spectrum of dance-musics: house, trance, drum n bass, trip-hop, the works. But, with so many tech-heads on board, is there a danger of plumping for generic sounds, to the detriment of the songs?
I suppose there is, in the fact that you can colour things, Fergal concedes. You can make something you mightn t necessarily be 100% happy with sound better. But the way we re doing it now, almost everything is going down acoustically.
The heart of the song is there from the first, Graham concurs. There s nothing disguised or anything like that. Effects and so on only come in later to improve it. You already have something you know you re happy with.
So, would they swallow the old line about songs that sound good on acoustic guitar and piano sounding good anywhere?
I don t think so, no, Graham counters. The great thing about utilising sampling is you can use sounds from different frequency bands, not actual notes from traditional scales of western music. If you isolate yourself to actually having to write a song on a piano, you re limiting yourself straight away. We still do pretty much utilise the scales in songs, but you can throw other elements into it.
Radars make no apologies for placing themselves squarely in the torch-song/trip-hop genre. Indeed, the quartet couldn t care less about being lumbered with inevitable Portishead/Sneaker Pimps comparisons.
People are gonna pigeonhole everybody, y know? Fergal points out. It s how much you want it to affect yourself. If you re playin acoustic guitar you d be compared to Townes Van Zandt. It never bothered me.
People wheel out the usual names: Massive Attack, Portishead, whatever, Graham adds, but when they see us live they recognise that we have a unique sound.
Radars are still very much learning the ropes writing material, recording, trying to establish a foothold on the national live circuit and in the clubs of Dublin and Cork. Accordingly, the ensemble remain shrewdly shy of making an album until they have the groundwork completed.
It s too early to be thinking about that, Graham declares. The dance market is very much singles orientated anyway, you ll see people like Roni Size, it must be five or six years since he released his first single, he s developed his own style over that time, and I thought his was a fairly exceptional album. We ll test the water with the new single and see what the responses are with record companies, but there s plenty of time. n
Another Day is out now on Murgatroid