Playback to the Future

It’s a balmy August day in central Dublin, and the streets are packed with locals, tourists, workers, shoppers – all milling around the narrow lanes and alleyways off Grafton Street. In a high-ceilinged room up a steep staircase in the old Victorian building above George’s Street Arcade, Orchid Collective are putting the finishing touches to the four songs that will make up their new EP.

Producer, engineer and mixer Rob Kirwan is at the controls of a massive multi-track recording desk, in front of a bank of monitor speakers and a large computer screen. Shea Tohill and Dave O’Shea, who both play guitar and sing with the band, are sat on a comfy sofa listening intently to the playback. It’s a painstaking process, this recording business, but an important one for any band or musician hoping to make progress.

The Dublin-based four-piece, who all met at BIMM music college, have been together barely two years, but their star has risen on the back of relentless gigging and the cracking single ‘Lay As Stone’. “It’s all going really great for us right now,” says Tohill. “Since March when the single came out, we seem to have shot up another rung of the ladder. There’s many more rungs to go of course, but we’ve been doing a lot of touring around Ireland and people seem to be liking what we’re doing.”

That next vital step starts right here, and producer Kirwan certainly seems the right choice for a band on the cusp of something bigger. He has worked with an A-list roster of major artists to date including U2, Depeche Mode and PJ Harvey, as well as local outfits such as BellX1, Delorentos and All Tvvins. His most recent triumph was working with Hozier on the Wicklow sensation’s debut - a worldwide number one album. But, as he explains, he began the hard way.

“I started out as a tea-boy in Windmill Lane, and then a year later I ended doing some engineering on a U2 record,” he recalls. “It was purely by default – there were two other guys ahead of me in the pecking order, but for one reason or another, I ended up doing it. Through that I got introduced to Flood and Eno and obviously to U2.”

When U2 started their own studio at Hannover Quay, they asked Kirwan to come and work with them. “The last U2 album I did was Pop and I built up a strong working relationship with Flood,” he reflects. “I ended up moving to London where I really learned my craft. Then I moved to Berlin for a while and came back here about six years ago.”

Kirwan’s modus operandi when working with a group such as Orchid Collective is, he says, to allow the live side of the band to shine through.

“I’m not one of these producers who likes to do everything separately, as in, ‘Let’s do the drums first and chop them up, then move onto the bass etc.’ To me the collective sound that a band make is what’s most interesting.

“What I try to do is get into a rehearsal room with the band beforehand and iron out any problems when the pressure is off. At that point, you’re not burning up money in the studio. Some bands need it less than others – some are almost fully-formed, while others need complete restructuring and arrangements in terms of the songs.”

Does he have a sonic signature or anything that marks out his own individual style? “Well, that piano [points to a Bösendorfer mini-grand] is instantly recognisable to anyone who has heard Hozier. Also, there’s a synthesizer I use on a lot of my records. But the number one thing to say for any producer is that it’s not about you. Your name isn’t on the front of the record. It’s the band’s record.”

For the band, having an experienced producer with serious credentials is clearly a big plus. Shea Tohill: “Rob’s been great for us. Having that fresh pair of ears for a start and having someone to critique our music is something we needed. We’re noticing things in our songs that we never would have noticed before. The guys have all finished at college, so now this is the main thing we’re doing, and it allows us to focus on that one hundred per cent. The live buzz is great, but being in the studio has its own vibe and it’s improving our musicianship.”

The band’s sound – a blend of shimmering electric and organic acoustic guitars, with ambient textures and lush harmonies – certainly lends itself to high production values. Not surprisingly, they’ve been compared to a host of Americana acts, as Tohill jokes. “People say it’s Fleet Foxes meets Bon Iver, meets The National meets Sigur Ros. I don’t know – it’s atmospheric folk-rock, I suppose (laughs). Me and Dave really dig Crosby, Stills & Nash and all those harmony bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Even Jackson Browne and that whole West Coast scene we love. But I was in a Pearl Jam kind of band before that.”

Dave O’Shea describes their songwriting approach: “Me and Shea have been playing together and writing songs for about four years now. Because we live together, we can work on them as much as we want. When we come up with something, I would add loads of reverb-y guitars and then we’d bring it to the band – our bass player Hugh has a good sense of arrangement, and then Brian adds his cool drums and it becomes something else. We’ve found that our material is maturing and we think this is our best bunch of songs so far.”

Orchid Collective’s EP will be launched in the autumn, and an album is on the horizon for next year. Before that, however, the band will be back out on the road. “We’re looking to go over to the UK or Europe and do a few showcases,” O’Shea notes. “People seem to be really digging it at the moment. Hopefully it continues that way.