What links both releases is that they are statements from two young virtuosos determined to show and prove; turn up and throw down, writes Dean Van Nguyen.
“Support Irish musicians in whatever way you can, whether it’s buying their vinyl online, paying for their digital downloads via Bandcamp, or taking part in whatever ventures they’re working on at home to help us get through the crisis.”
Not everyone has a park nearby, but Caimin Gilmore says he’d encourage anyone who can play an instrument to consider performing a socially distant concert for their neighbours.
Elsewhere, the relationship between producer and rapper is as celebrated as the link between a cinema auteur and their acting muse. It’s coming to the fore in Ireland, too.
“I’ve been thinking about the various forms of rap artists that distinguish our local scenes and have broadly – and I mean very broadly – come up with four different factions.”
Delaney plays traditional music and can sing a bit of sean-nós if he wants to. But he is also a house-music DJ and wants to break Irish-language songs out of their usual genres.
“I found a lot of my songs through songs of Irish chivalry and old books and I had to come up with airs that hadn’t been sung for centuries,” says Sean Fitzgerald.
“I never used to play Arabic stuff out, and then I slowly started to introduce random songs,” says Jamal Sul. “I started to realise that people actually liked it and I thought, ‘That’s weird.’”
