The A&R Department: New Pagans

Ingrid: Tell me the story behind your single ‘Admire’.
Lyndsey: We wrote it during an Analogue Catalogue session – we recorded for about an hour with Julie McLarnon. Her process is straight to tape, so it’s a kind of old, beautiful process. The idea for it came from thinking about long-term relationships and how good they can be, and also how music celebrates people staying together for a long time. It’s our only love song.

What other themes do you tackle?
There are some historical and political references. It’s usually just about the story. We’ve got a song called ‘Lily Yeats’, which is about the Yeats sisters, who were very heavily involved in the arts and crafts movement in Ireland, but they’re largely written out of history. So it’s a song about how, as women, we should rewrite the history, which is essentially what my PhD is about as well. So that comes in a lot.

What’s it like raising a family while being in a band?
This is my first band and my first time writing songs. I’ve only known this as a parent. We started the band initially because Cahir (O’Doherty – Fighting With Wire/Jetplane Landing) and I got married, then we had about three years trying for a family and it wasn’t happening, so we decided to start a band instead. And of course six months into that, I get pregnant.

You’ve got a new EP coming out soon.
Glacial Erratic is what it’s called, and it’s out on March 6. It’s our first physical release. It’s coming out on vinyl, so we’re really excited about that. It’s actually available at the minute at our shows, and it’s been getting really good feedback. It’s a collection of six songs, including some of the stuff that we’ve already put out, but we felt it was a really good way of closing a chapter and opening a new one.

•Their new single ‘Admire’ is out now..