A Year in Music – 2024 – Cormac Gahan (Boa Morte)
by Killian Laher

How are you, what sort of year have you had?

We’ve had a good year thanks. It was a quiet year compared to 2023 when we put out ‘The Total Space’ album. In 2024 we collaborated with composer/musician Justin Grounds on a completely re-worked version of our track “A Cloud of Stars / 2122” adding clarinet (played by Justin), trumpet (played by Tom O’Donovan) and synths followed by significant re-mixing by Bill and mastering by James Darkin. It was debuted on Cian Ó Cíobháin’s An Taobh Tuathail on Raidió na Gaeltachta for Cian’s 25th Anniversary celebrations for the show. Big thanks to Cian and all who subsequently played the track on RTE, Dublin City Fm, BBC Radio 6, 8 Radio and streaming playlists that picked it up.

We finished off the year with gigs in Prims, Kinsale and our first time playing Coughlans in Cork.

What are the albums you enjoyed most this year?

I put this out to everyone in the band… so here we go!….…

Maurice Hallissey: (Roughly in order of preference) Queridão – DJ Anderson Do Paraiso; Spectral Evolution – Rafael Toral; There Is A Garden – Beings; The Crying Out Of Things – The Body;  If I don’t make it, I love u – Still House Plants; Mahōgakkō – Hakushi Hasegawa; I Lay Down My Life For You – JPEGMAFIA; The Collective – Kim Gordon; Damaged – Ghost Dubs; Revelator – ELUCID; Maggot  Mass – Pharmakon; Night Palace – Mount Eerie; 3+5 – Melt-Banana; Acelero  – Crizin da Z.O; White Roses, My God – Alan Sparhawk; Viator – Adrián de Alfonso; Crónicas -Tia Maria Produçōes; Unrecognisable – Lolina; The Adept – Lord Spikeheart; High Tide – Able Noise; The New Sound – Geordie Greep; Brain Candy – Fat Tony & Fatboi Sharif; Orchards Of A Future Heaven – The Body & Dis Fig; Machine – The Bug; The Hard Quartet – The Hard Quartet

Paul Ruxton: Grandaddy – Blue Wav; Neil Young and Crazy Horse – F##kin’ Up; Broadcast – Distant Call

Bill Twomey: Nala Sinephro – Endlessness; Mt. Eerie – Night Palace; Shabaka – Perceive it’s Beauty Acknowledge it’s Grace; 2nd Grade – Scheduled Explosions; The Smile – Wall of Eyes; Harp – Albion; Kim Gordon – The Collective; Julia Holter – Something in the Room She Moves; Broadcast – Distant Call

Cormac: Shabaka – Perceive it’s Beauty Acknowledge it’s Grace; Adam Wiltzie – Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal; Nala Sinephro – Endlessness; Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou – Souvenirs; Alice Coltrane – the Carnegie Hall Concert; Gastr del Sol – We have dozens of titles; Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly – Mestizx; Beings – There is a Garden; Sarah Davachi – The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir; Rachael Lavelle – Big Dreams; Jeff Parker – Freakadelic (single); Von Spar & Eiko Ishibashi – Album I; Eiko Ishibashi – Evil does not Exist; Larissa O’Grady – Six New Works for Violin; Meshell Ndegeocello – No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin; Nico – Desertshore (reissue); Papa M  – Peel Sessions; Adrienne Lenker – Bright Future; Cornelius – Ethereal Essence; Dirty Three – Love Changes Everything

Is there any artist or album that defined the year for you?

For me it’s a tie between Shabaka Hutchings and Nala Sinephro. Probably acceptable as they both embody the London jazz scene at the moment. Two great albums.

Do you get to many gigs these days?

Collectively we’ve been to a few this year. Ones that stand out for me were Godspeed You Black Emperor in the National Stadium in Dublin, Lambchop at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Sam Amidon in Coughlan’s, Bonnie Prince Billy in both de Barras and the Everyman and Rachael Lavelle in Prims. Bills highlight was This is the Kit and Rozi Plain in Levis’ Ballydehob & Maurice made his annual pilgrimage to Le Guess Who in Utrecht (curated this year by Arooj Aftab, Mabbe Frati, Bo Ningen, Crystallmess, Darkside).

Do you think it will get to the stage where the ‘big concert’ is unaffordable for most of us?

It’s certainly looking that way. Thankfully the ‘big concert’ is not that appealing to me. I had no real interest in seeing Oasis and if I had the price would have been prohibitive. The financial rules governing the music business (in so much as they exist) are perplexing and the gap between financially successful acts and less financially successful acts is growing! The costs of touring are now becoming more of a problem for acts that earn an income from gigs and this feeds the inflation that you’re alluding to. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to be affecting creative output and music production is as exciting and inventive as it has ever been. I’m not sure what the solution is, but we keep going! I do recognise that we are in a privileged position of not relying on music for income, however it would be nice to make something back. The costs of making recorded music are not insignificant (as some may have us believe!).

What’s your reaction if Stairway To Heaven comes on the radio?

Ha – I actually would quite like it as I haven’t heard it in years!

Anything interesting in the works yourselves?

We are at the most interesting and creative part of the process: writing and demo-ing new music and seeing what works. We’ll then do some proper recording (both in our own studio setup and a professional studio) and piece elements together for a new album. We’re at the stage where Bill can engineer and mix a lot of the material and we have a good permanent studio setup in Cork. Hopefully, we will do some shows this year (2025), including shows in Dublin and the UK, but nothing is planned as of yet.