Bryce Dessner is looking forward to his second time curating Sounds From A Safe Harbour, the eclectic musical happening – “festival” seems too inadequate a word! – which returns to Cork from September 14-17 and finds Bryce accompanied this time by the rest of The National.
“It’s the first night of the tour, so it’ll be nice to do it in an intimate venue like the Opera House, which always brings the best out in artists,” he proffers. “We’ll try some different arrangements and some songs we don’t normally play.”
It’s all supposed to be hush-hush, but Bryce is bursting to tell us about the Irish guests on The National’s imminent Sleep Well Beast album.
“Lisa Hannigan, who’s become a good friend of ours, features quite prominently on it. My brother worked with her on her At Swim record. Lisa is one of the most interesting voices in music. I love what she did with that Seamus Heaney poem. She channels folk in a really creative way and is definitely one of the best artists at this year’s festival."
Despite being royally rained on recently at Kilmainham, the aforementioned Mr. Vernon and the rest of Bon Iver are taking care of Friday night headlining duties at Sounds From A Safe Harbour.
“I can’t claim the credit for that,” Bryce laughs. “Mary Hickson, who ran the Opera House for years and directs the festival, is as thick as thieves with Justin who’s an artist who really thrives in these more intimate creative environments. He’s going to be coming early, along with a bunch of other people, to work on some new collaborative stuff for the festival."