The North's Awake

Casting a glance over the 2013 team-sheet and, for the first time in quite a while, the depth of strength is remarkable. You’ll read more about Le Carousel, Soak and Arborist in the rest of the paper, so I’ll add my tuppence quickly and then shuffle out of the way.

Regarding Le Carousel, fans have been dazzled countless times by Phil Kieran over the years. Be it in a club or back home with the headphones on, he’s long been a mercurial and restless presence: always inquisitive, always challenging, always (one feels) believing that the best tune is the next tune.
Le Carousel, a swirling departure into psychedelic techno, feels like his most adventurous and accessible project yet. The presence of remixes from David Holmes and Andrew Weatherall on debut EP Lose Your Love shows the new material has pricked up the ears of the dance cognoscenti. Next year’s album will, hopefully, travel even further.
Soak? In common with what feels like most of the island, I’m intrigued at how this adventure is going to pan out. We’ve barely seen a completed prologue, never mind the full first chapter. But considering the authority with which what little that has emerged glows, it’s clear that Bridie Monds-Watson is in control of her own yarn.
As for Arborist, well – as one of the men (during his time with The Holy Innocents) responsible for the deathless ‘Epistle For Home’ – Mark McCambridge will always find a warm welcome round these parts. This guy’s a master songwriter – someone who’ll soon elbow his way between Robyn G. Shiels and Stevie Scullion (who both promise new records during the course of 2013) to make up an (un)holy trinity at the top of the division. And like the other two, his muse is an earth-bound one – full of scruffy moments and care-worn emotional truths. His development will be one of the most intriguing story strands of the year.
Interesting, too, to discover what Tony Wright and Iain Archer are conjuring up on the debut album from versechorusverse. Following on from his sterling work on the Jake Bugg record, Archer suddenly finds himself as producer du jour for a certain stripe of edgy young troubadour. That being the case – if they weren’t already intimate, some celestial indie match-maker would surely have already arranged an introduction between him and Wright. Eyes will meet. Stars align. They could be a power couple to watch.
John D’Arcy, who last year managed to write a children’s album based around the history of Lisburn while simultaneously composing an installation piece for the international Samuel Beckett symposium in Enniskillen, will no doubt continue along his own quixotic, entirely unpredictable path. We’ll happily follow where this most inquisitive of fellas leads.
The excellent Girls Names release The New Life in February, while progress is expected from the likes of Aaron Shanley, Katie and The Carnival, Colly Strings, Our Krypton Son, Neal Hughes, David C. Clements, Rams Pocket Radio and Silhouette.
There’s also some excited chatter surrounding Armagh rockers Gascan Ruckus, and the more sedate (and folk-minded) Alana Henderson.
And I must mention the upcoming third album from Desert Hearts. I think I’ve actually mentioned it in every new year preview for the last five years. However, I have it on good authority that it is now done, dusted, finished, locked. Seriously. Promise. Hearts crossed, hoping to die. Enturbulation = No Challenge (no, me neither) apparently sounds like nothing Charley and Roisin have produced to date. Which comes as little surprise to those of us who have long given up trying to predict what direction this crowd are intending to travel. Given the solid gold quality of their back catalogue, and the moments of off-beam brilliance they’ve generated over the last decade and more, the fact that there is a Desert Hearts album (any Desert Hearts album) about to be released should be a source of joy and anticipation. So we will wait anxiously until its release in April. Although please note, if I’ve to copy and paste this paragraph into the 2014 column, blame them, not me.