Sean Millar’s new album will be released on the 26th of this month, and is called C48. Some of you may know Sean’s work without knowing you do, as he has worked with Brokentalkers on Silver Stars and Blue Boy. He’s playing in the official theatre festival club, the Odessa on Thursday the 10th of October.
‘C48’ was produced by Joe Chester who also plays piano and it features Steve Wickham on violin, Cian Murphy on double bass and top London jazz-drummer Mark Hugget. The album is available for sale via doctormillar.com
Taking inspiration from musical heroes, Seán describes the this folk inspired album “I undertook a crowd funding campaign to make this album so that I could record it like a 1970’s record with double bass, drums, guitar and piano live in the studio together. There were no click tracks used and the instruments and many of the vocals were recorded in straight takes. The recording gear was original 1960’s hand built valve desks which add to the warmth and organic feel of the album. I hope the overall effect is like a poshly produced 70’s folk album. My idea was to pay tribute to artists like John Martin and Roy Harper whose work I admire so much”.
Why a folk album now? Seán explains the influence that folk music has on this new album “I feel the way some music is being made is killing it as an art form. Listening to classic 60’s and 70’s songs I realised few of the takes would have made it past the demo stages of most albums now. The drummers speed up, the singer comes in a fraction too late on the chorus – but these are the things that make all of these songs (Small Hours by John Martin, Like a Rolling Stone by Dylan) irreplaceable and classic because people recorded performances not just lines. Old fashioned production techniques died out not because they were inferior -as any engineer will tell you- but because they were too expensive. With this album I wanted to make music where the sound is as good as it can possibly be. I wanted to let the songs sing, let their art and craft and the quality of the performance be the main event. I was 48 when I started recording this album. Maybe I’ll never get a chance to make one again so I wanted it to be good. I understand folk music, it’s my natural home. Sometimes in life it’s just time to go home”.
IN CONCERT AS PART OF DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL
THUR OCTOBER 10TH 9PM FESTIVAL CLUB AT ODESSA, 13 DAME COURT, DUBLIN 2
Tickets e12 bookings: www.dublintheatrefestival.com tel: 01 677 8899
No More Workhorse 