Album Review: Telefís - 'A hAon'

The latest project from Cork contrarian Cathal Coughlan and superproducer Jacknife Lee, the wonderfully titled Telefís, explores the Ireland the pair grew up in, as reflected through the prism of our national broadcaster.

Over Lee’s electronic backdrops, Coughlan waxes archly on everything from the stranglehold of the Catholic church to Cork-born drag star Danny La Rue. 

Coughlan is one of the finest songwriters this country has produced in the rock era, and his lyrical dexterity is at play throughout, whether painting pictures of a Dublin long gone on the haunting ‘Picadors’; hiding venom behind a sweet croon on the masterful ‘Falun Gong Dancer’; or declaiming a “free speech gang-bang” on ‘We Need’. The raw rage of his Fatima Mansions days may be largely behind him, but there’s enough restrained vitriol in ‘Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics’ or ‘There Goes Waterface’ to put most young punks to shame.

The noir-ish glare of ‘Sex Bunting’ and the fractured ‘Stampede’ verge on genuinely disturbing, Coughlan the twisted patrician overseeing all manner of excess, while the goth-pop of ‘Ballytransnational’ is like Violator-era Depeche Mode. A wonderful opening salvo.

Listen: ‘Falun Gong Dancer’

A hAon is out now via Dimple Discs.