Nick Mulvey: "I've got great respect and love for Irish culture"

On a tranquil Temple Bar morning, upstairs in The Button Factory, Nick Mulvey is sitting on a long couch, in front of a huge window, gamely fielding questions from the Hot Press Rapid Fire Q&A team. The final question asks him “Best advice?”, and without hesitation, he replies, “It comes from the book of life, the Book Of Matthew – ‘Seek you first the Kingdom of Heaven and then all you seek shall be handed on to you.’”

Matthew 6:33 also reflects some of themes of Nick’s recent fourth album, Dark Harvest, Pt.1. Its overriding message might be that, in times of grief, descent and loss, faith in a higher power will see you through. Nick has endured a tough few years and when he was at his lowest point, a friend said to him, “There we will be a dark harvest, there will be treasure from these struggles." It was a sage observation that ultimately held true.

“I used to resist what felt like a cliché,” Nick opines, “that suffering created the best art. I don't necessarily subscribe to that, but I have to say this album is one of those.”

I wonder about the evolution of Nick’s songwriting – but first, let’s set the context. Mulvey seemed to come out of the box fully formed as an artist. Both his solo debut, 2014's First Mind, and 2008’s Knee-Deep In The North Sea – the debut from his outfit the Portico Quartet – were nominated for the Mercury Prize. Considering many songs on his current LP extol God, I wonder is he referring to his muse or his faith?

“It's an interesting question,” he considers. “I think these days, they meet somewhere in the middle, inside me, both my faith and the muse. I would call that meeting space the Holy Spirit. I think that all good ideas are channelled beyond me. I mean, whichever way I look at it, I'm made of dust, put together by something greater than me. So, everything I do that's not destructive, I accredit to that power.”

The album contains absorbing deliberations within song titles, such as ‘Radical Tenderness’, which Nick describes as “actual honesty and real tenderness”. Then there's ‘Solastalgia’, a term coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, which describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by negatively perceived environmental change

“Albrecht’s articulating something contemporary, something deep,” Nick expands. “It's about the sense of one’s home environment changing – even if you're still in it, it's not what it was. We're all experiencing that by degrees with climate change, some people in the world a lot more than others, obviously. Personally, I was experiencing it going through separation with the mother of my children, so the term resonated.”

Considering the vulnerability and raw honesty on Dark Waters, Pt.1, how are the songs landing in a live setting?

“It's full on what's happening at the gigs,” Mulvey reflects. "It’s beautiful, I'm really proud of my work and i'm blessed to do it. The nature of what we're doing means the process itself doesn't get heavy. Because we're coming together in our realness and rawness, and then we're connecting to that vulnerability.

"Then we're bringing it to the surface – all of our ecstasies, joys and fears. And all the deep uncertainty of these times, the mystery, the pain. Through that connection, there's a real elevation. We're real about ourselves and our smallness, and our weirdness and our fears, and that allows for this bigger context.”

Irish audiences will be able to savour this communal benediction across no less than nine gigs in September. As it happens, the origin of the story is quite the tale.

“I've always enjoyed coming to Ireland,” Nick explains. “I've got great respect and love for Irish culture. Whenever I've come to Ireland, I'm just doing Dublin and Belfast. I've always had excellent times, and for a while, I’ve wanted to come for more. I had a song I started when I was in my twenties that I never finished. It was just these very simple chords, and it connects to the fact I've got Irish blood.

"So, I'm hanging out with my friend and writing partner, Kat Dever, and I play her this song. She completely lights up with it, and she's just like, ‘Listen, it's close. It just needs a bit more work. It just needs a narrative, like a road trip’. Previous to this, she'd been on a road trip on the Wild Atlantic Way. She met a bunch of musicians from Hozier’s band, from Riverdance, from Beoga – all these Irish guys who were hanging out in Lahinch in County Clare.

"They were on a clifftop in a car park, and they were having a right old session. She started sending me these videos – they were rapping Notorious BIG but with these reels, and it was so good! So, we finished this song off, called ‘The Wild Atlantic Way’. We loved it, and when we looked at my tour dates, my European tour ended in Vicar St and Mandela Hall."

That was the start of another chapter...

"Kat had this bright idea," Mulvey continues. "‘Why don't I track down all those musicians I met in Lahinch, and send them an iPhone demo of the song? I'll get them to learn it, and we'll get them to join you on stage for the encore in Vicar St. Then they'll jump on the tourbus, and we'll do it again in Belfast for the encore. And let's get in the studio and cut it while it's really fresh!’

"So, it's an amazing story. Everyone aligns – Dermot Sheedy from Hermitage Green, Meg LaGrande, Gisela Mara, and Niamh Dunne and Seán Óg Graham from Beoga all got involved. We cut it and then that night, we went to this 17th century pub called The Cross Keys just outside Belfast, and we played all night. I had this deep, humble feeling of the richness of this culture, realising that Niamh Dunne and Seán Óg Graham are living libraries of this cultural heritage. I was in heaven.”

Further exciting news for Nick Mulvey fans, is that Dark Harvest, Pt.2 will be released this autumn. At risk of over simplifying - Dark Harvest, Pt. 1 deals with the unravelling of self, while Dark Harvest, Pt.2 deals with mending of self.

“They were all recorded at the same time, and all written from the same part of my life,” Nick explains. “As I divided them up, I made a conscious decision to put most of the songs about the challenges I've faced in recent years, and the coming apart, on the first album.

"Then the coming back together – the centre of which is about a clarified faith and my love of Jesus – is on the second record.”

Intriguingly, the Irish tour will be just Nick and his guitar.

“Basically, every song I've written,” Nick explains, “can be reduced just back to me and the guitar. So it's about just stripping away to connect with my audience.”

Indeed, Nick’s boss version of The Lovers Speaks’ ‘No More I Love You’s' – a song made famous by Annie Lennox – breathes life into the hit single, by laying it bare.

“One winter morning,” he relates, “I was in London, walking down the street and it came on shuffle. It's a song I knew really well, but I hadn't heard it in 10 years or something. Tears started rolling, and I didn't know how much emotion I was holding under the surface until hearing this song.

"It was so powerful, so therapeutic. I resolved to learn the song, and in fact, it came very quickly. I found a unique voicing of it on the guitar. It has all the factors I would use to choose a cover – it's well-known but not expected of me, and I can bring my own thing to it. I can really reveal something about the song that maybe people haven't heard before.”

• • Nick Mulvey embarks on an Irish tour in September, with dates including Nerve Centre, Derry (September 4); TF Royal, Castlebar (5); Mandela Hall, Belfast (6); Vicar St, Dublin (8 & 9); and the Set Theatre, Kilkenny (11). For full list of shows, see nickmulvey.com