Dean: Zoé Basha and Martina and The Moons light up an afternoon

I’ve experienced the future of live music and it’s 30-minute sets on weekday afternoons. Perhaps that’s a teeny, tiny overstatement, but the short daytime gigs that take place in the Grand Social as part of the annual Ireland Music Week are a fun novelty. I take an hour out of the Thursday (2 October) to witness two artists selected to perform this year: folk traditionalist Zoé Basha and emerging rock band Martina and The Moons.

First, it’s Basha, who performs on the Grand Social’s upstairs stage – officially dubbed The Loft. Born in Paris and raised in Miami, she has, in recent years, settled in Dublin, bringing with her a rich, rustic interpretation of traditional Appalachian folk and ragtime music. In fact, Basha had an exciting announcement to make mid-set: the title track of her debut album Gamble has been shortlisted for a potential Grammy Award nomination.

“I think a lot of people are shortlisted, but I’m excited,” Basha tells the crowd. Quite right – to catch the ear of Grammy voters is a great achievement, particularly when her take on “American Roots” so clearly draws upon her Irish experience.

The set begins with the a capella “Love is Teasin’”, opening track from Gamble. As Basha’s voice fills the room, an audible beat from elsewhere in the venue threatens to break the spell, yet the crowd remains fully engaged and in the moment. (In fact, there’s very little chatter throughout the set, a testament to Basha’s stage presence, but possibly also evidence that afternoon gigs generate more relaxed audiences.) Watching Basha command the space with no instrumental backing invokes memories of beloved American band Tune-Yards opening a gig with a similar performance. But while Merrill Garbus wields a more robust voice to propel her worldbeat sound, Basha’s lilting style is more soothing – an instrument ideally suited to her musical proclivities.

“Now the most incredible band you’ve ever seen,” she announces, naming each musician individually as they take to the stage. “Usually I talk a lot of shit between songs but this is a short set so we’re going to get right into it.”

So it’s straight to the opening notes of “Dublin Street Corners”, a solemn, pretty number that teleports country legend Loretta Lynn to Thomas Street, with a soft fiddle accompaniment that sounds gorgeous in a live setting. This is Basha’s most striking song, so it’s a surprise to hear it so early in the set. There are plenty more highpoints from Gamble, though: The title track more closely embraces classic Americana, while the band close the show with the satisfying honky-tonk tune “Come Find Me Lonesome”.

Despite being up against the clock, Basha finds time for a cover of “False Sir John”, a song by the influential Kentucky singer Jean Ritchie, who began her long recording career in the 1950s. Ritchie’s song is a variant on an old 18th-century European composition about a knight who woos a young girl into eloping with her family’s gold. The song’s wordy verses and simple but resonant melody lays bare the DNA shared by American roots music and Irish trad. Basha’s artistry is helped by her ability to connect both.

Following Basha’s set, the crowd filters downstairs to the Grand Social’s ballroom stage, just as Martina and The Moons are entering orbit.

The group is led by Martina Moon herself, another artist who has made a home in Dublin. Born in Scotland and raised in Spain, Moon moved to the city in 2021 to study at the BIMM Music Institute. Persuaded by the eternal truths of rock‘n’roll, she formed a band with guitarist Sarah Morgan, bass player Ruby Levins, and drummer Zahira Ellis, who takes to the stage today fantastically dressed in a shirt, tie and Kangol hat. All are said to be from various corners of Ireland and, like Moon, relocated to Dublin to study music. On Bandcamp, you’ll find Mosaic (30 Days, 30 Songs), a collection of musical sketches Moon recorded over one month in 2023, but more fully formed are the batch of impressive singles the group have since released.

While Zoé Basha’s pleasant folk could be said to have reflected the autumn afternoon outside, Martina and The Moons are more interested in generating raw power. Their sound is a grungy but tuneful form of alternative rock. The band cite ’90s Britpop bands such as Catatonia and Elastica as influences, and I can hear the spirit of Supergrass on new single “Laundry Mat”. They’re also confirmed disciples of Radiohead – I can imagine “Baby Turtle” being inspired by their critically canonised elders’ mid-2000s era. In this live setting, a thick atmosphere reverberates from the instruments, asserting the song’s strong sense of mysticism.

There are moments during their set – a mix of recent singles and unreleased songs – when the band’s punk ethos is exposed. They close with a wild wig-out, the guitars and bass cutting like razor wire, Moon’s vocals dripping with belligerence.

Maybe it’s the pace at which the band perform some of the more rollicking tracks, but by my watch their set ends with at least five minutes left for them to play with. So rollicking was the finale, in fact, that it’s a little disorientating to immediately step outside to a perfectly normal Dublin city afternoon, and the realisation that the show had not taken place under common conditions, but before most of the city had clocked off from their nine-to-five.