After releasing the  single 'Shimmer Boy' last month, the indie-pop artist AE MAK is ready to take Ireland and the UK by storm.

Before that though, in between returning from Yosemite, California and heading out on tour, she stopped to talk about her latest EP mixtape Berlin, which comes out tomorrow, Friday, April 21st.

Calling in from Kreuzberg, Berlin, AE MAK, also known as Aoife McCann, talked about making the EP in her new home-city after moving there last summer. Since getting back from her trip to the states, Aoife only had a quick week of reprieve before she was set to head back out on the road to Slovakia.

"We’re getting an eight-hour train from Berlin and staying there for a couple of nights. It’ll be nice."

The first time on the road performing in over a year, all Aoife can say is to "bring on the business."

Me and my best mate El moved to Berlin Autumn 2021 on broken hearts and dreams of building a new home. I made a bunch of songs that Winter; sexting, dancing, chest flames, clubs, self-destruction, rebirth and baked cheesecakes.
“Berlin” comes out at midnight
AX pic.twitter.com/PF8p305vjU

— Æ MAK (@AEMAKofficial) April 20, 2023

Aoife's shows as AE MAK are known for their enchanting vocals and enthralling dance moves. With quick, sharp movements striking out, Aoife follows the beat of her own drum as her performances enrapture and enrapture the visual attention of her audience as much as her stunning vocals and tracks do.

When asked if she has any pre-show rituals to get her in the zone, Aoife simply laughed.

"No, I tend to just drink a bottle of lucozade and hope for the best."

Elaborating further, AE MAK offered that her "pre-show ritual is kind of just don’t talk to anyone for half an hour. Get in the zone. Pace up and down the floor, like a jaguar, until the show is on."

It's a description that leaves an image in the mind reminiscent of her in-place boogies.

In general, though, Aoife advises to just "drink sugar. Especially if you’re tired."

The lucozade serves an important purpose: "Or else I just won’t be able to sing."

AE Mak at The Button Factory. Saturday 7th of December 2019. Copyright Emily O'Callaghan.

The EP Berlin, the inspiration behind her tour, has three tracks on it. They're all written about her time in the titular city with her best friend after getting her heart broken. About winter, self-destruction, and rebirth, the prevalent themes of the album play on the dual concepts of friendship, lust, and new love versus the feeling of being ungrounded and lost.

Leaving an impression on the singer-songwriter in the six months she spent there, Aoife always had plans to return. Now that she has - and she's made great music about it all: the break-up, the healing, and the dreams of forging forward into a new future, all things fostered by that first month abroad.

"I’m finally here. I've been here since last summer now. It’s just about the experiences we had in that month. Going out. We both broke up with our partners that month. It was just about exploring Berlin and what I felt like it sounded like in those couple of songs."

Of course, while Aoife noted that while it's been some time since the tracks were first made, crafting them over a year and a half ago, the memories remain preserved. They are especially poignant in the videos and pictures taken of their time there, like the ones that made it into 'Shimmer Boy's' music video.

"I just got my mates to send me loads of stuff from those couple of months," the Dundalk-native recalls. "I wanted it to feel like a snapshot of Berlin at that time. I also wanted it to feel like new love and lust and just all that sparkliness that comes with any new relationship."

It wasn't all new love, lust, and sparkles, though. While the move across borders was emotionally freeing, it wasn't wholly so. It wasn't always home. It had to be made into one.

"It's really hard moving to Berlin, to any city, so I wanted it to feel isolated and a bit lost as well."

Moving away from the somber note, Aoife laughed at the rest of 'Shimmer Boy's music making-process, involving the talented work of her mate from home, Tim.

"When he came over from Dundalk, we just bussed around the area I lived in and he just shot me and my partner kissing for ages," Aoife chuckled. "Which, I’m sure he’d loved that."

The design and aesthetic behind the AE MAK's music videos is dependent upon what Aoife wants to get from the video. With her Class Exercises works, she wanted the greater collection to sound like a house party with her friends. Made in lockdown, it took on a "dream-y-esque" vibe.

Comparatively, Berlin is also a house party, but a "different house part with different people. The house party up the road from the other house party."

'Shimmer Boy,' Aoife says, was meant to be a club song but "it's a little bit too left." She shared a hope that when it gets remixed it will shape up to the "dance floor club tune" it was once envisioned as.

AE Mak @ Indiependence 2019 Day 2

Overall, though, she doesn't approach her music videos with a direction beforehand.

"There's never really much thinking behind what I'm doing. I'm just doing it because it feels good and I'm excited about it. There's never a big intention or anything. The intention is very specific to the present moment. Aesthetically, it's just me and my pals."

It's something that has developed with her creative style, apparently, especially after she started producing.

"When I just wrote songs and worked with other producers, part of my creative process was the video-making and the photography of it. I was big into that."

Since, though, she's pivoted to focusing on the aesthetics and visuals with a more personal element that evolved as an intrinsic part of the production process where she's been focusing most of her energy.

That's not to say she's been working on this EP solo. Among the help she recruited into the project is the South London dance producer A-Trip, who she met after releasing Class Exercises dropped.

"He was looking for collaborators for his album," Aoife remembers. "So I collaborated. I wrote a vocal line for one of his songs that hasn't come out yet. We've been working together ever since."

Describing his talents as reminiscent of the buzz from the Factory Floor Boiler Room, Aoife praised his work on both 'Sun God, I'll Be Your Woman,' for which he mixed additional production for last summer, and his brilliant work on 'Shimmer Boy.'

"It’s still weird and artsy but it's got a proper dance production underneath it to give it a backbone and core and push it forward. Otherwise it would have sounded like a little art freak, which is great, but I wanted it to sound slicker and more accessible."

Besides 'Shimmer Boy,' Berlin is made up of 'Baked Cheesecake' and 'Bluer.'

Taking inspiration from Hiatus Kaiyote and the Portuguese producer Populous, she says that the former is "very on the nose."

"It's about moving to a new city with little different stories in different pockets of the verses of what happened: meeting new people or whaterver. I just wanted it to flow like R&B indie-pop."

In contrast, 'Bluer' is "a bit more alternative indie. A bit more primitive, tribal. There's some guitar in there, which is weird because I never use a guitar. It's a synth guitar, obviously, but it sounds more guitar-y."

Credit: Robbie Mullins.

For the last track, she even reached out to fellow Dundalk-native David Noonan of Just Mustard. Becoming acquainted with the members Just Mustard when they were teenagers, they grew up together and supported each other through breaking out into Ireland's music scene.

"I asked David Noonan, 'Would you work on the track with me?' And he did. It’s kind of like dreamscape-y, soundscape-y buzz of what he does with his guitar. He just mixed the synths and made it sound really cool. Put some cool filters and stuff on it. It doesn’t sound rocky, it’s not like indie rock. But it’s definitely a more harsh, metallic sounding and glitchy."

"That was the point to work with different producers," Aoife proudly stated. "To bring them into a different world."

Speaking of different influences, the city of Berlin, the overarching connection linking the tracks of her new EP, remains at the forefront of the discussion. And part of that discussion involves an inquiry into how Aoife thinks its impacted her music.

Compared to her background in musical theatre, which the indie artist believes moreso affects her performance style, she's unsure of how much Berlin has affected her.

"I feel like my sound is always in flux no matter where I am. I feel like the concept or the content influenced what the songs were."

Of course, there can be other influences that stem from her time in Berlin, Aoife just doesn't think that it was the local music life.

"In terms of sound, I’m not really in the music scene here. I feel like it’s quite transient and there are loads of different scenes. There is a big EDM or electronic music scene, but I haven’t quite been inspired by music yet."

 

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"If you go anywhere new, any new environment, you get inspired in a different way. Maybe the ceilings of the buildings and the architecture, the experiences I’m having here, how open it is socially and sexually. It definitely influenced what I’m making but in terms of the sound, but the answer is I don’t know."

Laughing she added that, "I feel like I’m progressing in the sound I’m making anyway. The feeling of being here would definitely inspire that to change or progress."

When asked, Aoife says that the already released 'Shimmer Boy' is probably her favourite track from the EP, although she's excited for 'Baked Cheesecake' to drop. Thankfully, she doesn't have long to wait, and neither do we.

Playing Whelan's mainstage next week on April 27th, she'll follow the show up with visits to Galway on April 28th, Belfast on April 29th, Cork on April 30th, and London on May 3rd. Even if you can't make it, be sure to check out her new EP Berlin when it drops on the stroke of midnight.

Listen to AE MAK here:

Check out tickets for AE MAK's performance at Whelan's next Friday, April 27th at 8:00PM, starting at €17.50 here: