Hit the North: Culture Club

Anyone from Limerick worried about the city of culture controversy may find some comfort in listening to Ryan Vail.

The young Derry electro performer may not have the emaciated patter of a ‘cultural provider’, but he makes a fairly convincing advocate for taking advantage of the spotlight when it lands on your home-town. A City of Culture title doesn’t have to be as soul-destroying as some arts heads would lead you to believe. It can – really – do those things you’d want an event like this to do: inspire local talent, provide a platform, even leave a legacy:
“The City of Culture was fantastic for the local band scene here in the town,” he enthuses. “Loads of acts broke through with the help of it. We had Soak, Little Bear and The Clameens to name a few. They all got amazing press from it and are now some of the most talked-about acts in Ireland. We had an amazing time playing last year as well. We were on Other Voices, BBC’s Introducing Live and got to support Jon Hopkins at Celtronic. It was just fantastic to have that calibre of events happening in your home town.”
Derry, of course, was also lucky to have its one-off beano occur at a full-harvest of home-town talent.
And Ryan Vail (which, confusingly, for the benefit of recordings and performances is actually Ryan and multi-instrumentalist Kate Cosgrove) was right at the top of that pile.
And, in case anyone is worried that following such a dizzy-making year a hangover is inevitable, a glance at their roster for 2014 would suggest otherwise.
“We’ve a three-track E.P. (GROW) due out around March on Champion Sound Music,” he reveals. “We're also finishing off a Sound Track for a programme for BBC TV. So we’ve got quite a lot of things coming up.”
Ryan has, in the past, spoken of his ongoing obsession with stockpiling vintage equipment. And, by the sounds of it, Santa Claus was very good to him this Christmas.
“Yes,” he laughs, “I’ve now got a Moog Minitaur, Nord 2 and an Access Virus. We also built a valve hi-fi system which is pretty cool. The hunt is always on for the perfect sound.”
This progressive ambition should be no surprise to anyone who has tracked the pair over the last few years. From The Words EP to The Fades EP the development has been clear: both in the increasing sonic boldness on display, and the creeping sure-footedness of the song-writing.
“Well, we basically started quite beats-driven. Now we’re improving on singing and playing a lot. I think it’s only natural to develop the longer you do it. Hopefully people will see that in our next release.”
Ah, the next release. As late as New Year, it had been taken for granted that the next collection of Ryan Vail music would be the eagerly anticipated debut album (“I actually went into this year thinking this is it, albums out around April.”), however, after taking some soundings from those in his inner circle, he’s decided to shelve the grand offensive for a year, and concentrate instead of gaining more ground: “We’ll do a couple of smaller releases and gig for the next 10 months,” he says.
“We want to take our music further afield and to develop the live performance more. This year I’ll be playing a lot of piano live, Katie will be doing some percussion live as well. We are also working with a really cool film director Called Gilles Le Barbe. So expect some good music videos on the band’s Facebook page in March.”

The Grow EP will be released on Champion Sound Records in March.