Nature boy
Namechecked in Rolling Stone as one of Ryan Adams’ favourite songwriters, Galway artists ADRIAN CROWLEY gets all pantheist on us for his fifth album Season Of The Sparks.
Olaf Tyaransen, 21 Apr 2009
“It’s 10 years now since I’ve started making albums,” muses singer-songwriter Adrian Crowley. “This new one was the easiest so far. It came about really easily – from writing to mixing, it all happened kind of fast.”
The album in question is Season Of The Sparks, the Dublin-based Galwegian’s fifth long player. Co-produced with Stephen Shannon, it’s not quite as sparse and melancholic as some of his previous work. Having said that, he’s not exactly rocking out either.
While there’s definitely a nature theme running through its ten tracks, he denies that there’s any apicultural agenda. “Bees? No! I did a cover of Ivor Cutler’s ‘Squeeze Bees’, which is a bit of a departure for me, and there’s another song called ‘The Beekeeper’s Wife’, but I would hope there isn’t a bee theme going through the album,” he laughs. “I didn’t have any map at all when I was writing it, but I suppose everything was written around the same time. Someone said to me that there’s a lot of light in it, and someone else mentioned that there’s a kind of pastoral feel. I go by instinct and, while I write a lot, I don’t keep everything. It’s usually only afterwards that you notice these things. To me, it’s just a celebration of life.”
Crowley’s last album Long Distance Swimmer was nominated for the 2008 Choice Award. Having flown under the cultural radar for so long, he says it came as a pleasant surprise.
“It gave me a real lift in terms of my self-belief and really opened my eyes as to how I was perceived in Ireland. Up to then, I really didn’t think anything was happening in Ireland at all. So it was a really great buzz in that way – a validation of something I thought wasn’t there. I kind of got the impression that people had been quietly watching my career for a while and they finally decided it was time to make some kind of gesture. Which was amazing. It helped me in many ways – personally and professionally.”
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