Boa Morte – A Year in Music – 2025
by Killian Laher

How has your year been?

Great thanks. We finished last year with shows in Prims, Kinsale and Coughlans in Cork and then started to concentrate on songs for the next album. It took most of the year to work up arrangements and production ideas, and we recorded the basic tracks in Hellfire Studios up in the Dublin mountains with James Darkin (who produced Before There Was Air) at the desk. It’s a great studio for recording live performances, and this was our approach, even recording live piano along with drums, guitar and bass for some songs – and Joe at Hellfire was great to work with. Vocals were done a few weeks later over a couple of days at The Clinic studio in Clontarf. We’re now in the process of adding overdubs and other instruments, and just completed a great one-day session in Wavefield studios in Clonakilty with Brian and Sarah. There’s more to do, but we have a good setup at our practice room/studio in Cork, and so can do much of the rest ourselves.

What albums have you enjoyed most this year? 

As we did last year, here are the individual lists from all of us! You can see the caroline and Richard Dawson albums feature strongly!

Maurice Hallissey: billy woods – Golliwog, Armand Hammer – Mercy, YHWH Nailgun – 3. 45 Pounds, Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound, Deerhoof – Noble And Godlike In Ruin, Mopcut ft MC Dälek – RYOK, caroline – caroline 2, Los Thuthanaka – Los Thuthanaka, Sumac & Moor Mother – The Film,  Rich(ard) Dawson – End Of The Middle, Voice Actor, Squu – Lust 1, Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar, Clipping – Dead Channel Sky, Pharaoh Overlord – Louhi, [Ahmed] – [Sama’a]

Bill Twomey:  Juana Molina – Siestas ahi, caroline – caroline 2, Nala Sinephro’s soundtrack to The Smashing Machine, Kiran Leonard – Small Brown Bed/With You Waltz, Joanne Robertson – Blurrr, Rich(ard) Dawson – End of the Middle.

Paul Ruxton: Rich(ard) Dawson – End of the middle, caroline – caroline 2, Tortoise – Touch,  Alex G – Headlights, Tony Molina – On this day

Cormac Gahan: Rich(ard) Dawson – End of the middle, caroline – caroline 2, Kiran Leonard – Small Brown Bed/With You Waltz, These New Puritans –  Crooked Wing, Jake Xerses Fussell & James Elkington – Rebuilding, Anna B Savage – You and I are Earth, DjRUM -Under Tangled Silence, Michael Scott Dawson & Dasom Baek – The Tinnitus Chorus (ok it was 2024!), Los Pirañas – Una Oportunidad más de triunfar en la vida, Keeley Forsyth & Matthew Bourne – Hand to Mouth, Rún – Rún, Claire M Singer – Gleann Ciùin

What’s the most promising new act you’ve heard this year? 

A lot of acts new to me (like DjRUM for instance) have been making music for quite a while. Of my favourite debuts, I’d have to say the album from Rún.

Any gig highlights? 

Maurice: Mopcut ft MC Dälek or maybe [Ahmed] at LGW

Bill: Richard Dawson – St Lukes, also MBV for full sensory assault. Honourable mentions: Jake Xerses Fussell, Anna B Savage

Cormac: These New Puritans (Bitterzoet, Amsterdam) and/or My Bloody Valentine (3 Arena) also Peter Broderick (in Maureens Pub) –  Rachel Lavelle, Lana del Rey, Jake Xerses Fussell, Anna B Savage

Can you recommend an album that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves? 

A lot of people I’m currently listening to probably deserve way more attention – notably Kiran Leonard (so I’d say his latest album), and also I’m listening back to Kemper Norton (try Toll or any of his albums). There’s a lot of great music out there, and not necessarily from household names.

What inspires you these days? 

We are inspired by the music and artists we listen to or read, or go to see. (from all the band…) M. John Harrison, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, Rachel Cusk, These New Puritans, Juana Molina, Jason Molina, Tony Molina (collectively – the Molinas!), Mark Hollis, Moor Mother (and on and on). Currently, the proper use of technology is also inspiring (& by that I mean humans at the controls).

Anything interesting in the works for next year? 

See our recording activities I mentioned previously! Really looking forward to this next album coming out, as I feel it is quite different to the others and marks a progression from  Before there was Air and The Total Space.