Bleep with one eye open

There are many styles of music that you might associate with the Irish scene – acoustic, indie-guitar, post-rock and so forth. But electronica isn't one of them.

For those few bands working within the field, it must be a somewhat lonely existence. Certainly, Paul from Dublin’s Channel One would seem to think so: “The stuff that we grew up listening to would definitely be bit different from most Irish music. The whole singer-songwriter thing here never hit home with us.”
While there has been a history of bands making off-the-wall guitar music and acts doing the same with pure electonics, Channel One sit somewhere in the middle.
“Yes, we’d be as excited by the likes of Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor as we would by the electronic acts," says Paul.
"We never really saw the two things being at odds with each other. We embraced them both. When it comes to the creative process – for us it was about whatever kind of equipment we could get our hands on. We’d always played guitars and then we got in some second-hand drum machines and stuff.”
Was the source material hard to get hold of, given it’s underground nature?
“Not really. We get most of our music through the internet. That exploded around the same time as the whole clubbing thing in the ‘90s, so it wasn’t that big an issue."
Combining guitar and dance influences is never easy, he says. "When you try and mix disparate elements it can sound fucking awful but when you listen to the right things and take your cues from the right places, it always helps. Our sound was a bit more all over the place at the start but I think we’ve got it down now.”
“We’ve always used samplers from the start but have also tried to keep the guitars and bass as much to the forefront as possible. Mixing drum machines with drums has to be one of the toughest things, making the drums sound like a machine and visa versa. If you can master that, it’s quite interesting.”
The band spent two years mastering their craft before finally venturing out onto the live circuit in 2004. Did their unique set up cause any problems?
“Absolutely. When we first started playing the smaller venues, you’d get a lot of soundmen from the old school of Dublin rock who’d go, ‘What the fuck is this?’.
“It can sound disastrous, so we’re lucky enough now to have a semi-regular soundman who knows what he’s doing. I know bands who are all electronic and they get a harder time than we do because a lot of people just don’t want to know.”
Paul also concedes that there can be a similar problem with the audience.
“With us I’m sure there are a whole lot of people who just wouldn’t be interested but there’s a smaller number who are really excited about it. That’s fine. I can’t ever see us selling millions of records but there is a niche that we have been able to tap into a little bit.
“The Irish reaction can be a bit confused, whereas when we play in Berlin or the UK they seem to switch onto it more. At the same time Dublin is very clued up for a city of its size.”
Following their own path, however, has proved successful for the band – they've opened for a range of eclectic acts. “It’s like the whole Soulwax thing, where they can do the indie-rock set and then the club thing.
“It’s great if you can straddle both and it has worked for us. When we play the late night gigs people tend to dance more whereas at the early shows they scratch their chins and aren’t really sure whether to dance or not”.
The ultimate answer, though, is surely obvious. Channel One are a band who mix rock and dance beats – are they about to clamber aboard the New Rave bandwagon? Paul laughs.
“Oh Jesus I hope not. I don’t know much about it but it seems very contrived, something that they dreamt up in a marketing department to sell something back to people. Fair play to them but it wouldn’t be something that we’d be interested in…”