Archive News
Alien duo create music that’s just out of this world
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
Electro duo Nanu Nanu, who describe their music as ‘alien pop’ will play Monroe’s Live on Thursday, January 31. Their gig is part of The Certain Three nationwide tour, which also includes songwriter Si Schroeder and Cork band Trumpets of Jericho.
Nanu Nanu are Glitterface and Mirrorman, who by day are known as Laura Sheeran and Marc Aubele. On the day of this interview, the demise of HMV has just been announced; however, Laura sees a silver lining in this situation.
“I’m hoping it’s going to make more traffic for the independent shops,” she says. “Maybe those small businesses are going to get more of a boost, and they’ll start stocking more mainstream stuff. Which I think would be good, because it’ll open up the audience to all different types of music.”
Nanu Nanu began in the summer of 2011 when Laura – an acclaimed solo singer in her own right – got a new voice effects pedal. She tinkered away with this while Marc was in America with Bell X1, of which he’s a touring member.
“When Marc came back, he’d gotten a new Moog synthesiser,” Laura says. “The two of us went into the studio for a jam, ‘cos both of us wanted to show off our new gear. Up until that point, we’d played in each other’s bands but we’d never written any music together.
“We started writing songs immediately,” she adds. “We didn’t even make a decision, it just naturally started happening. In the studio, we roughly recorded all the sketches, and then it just went from there. We were able to use a lot of the material from the first few sessions [and] in three or four days, we had the bones of an album sketched out.”
The duo had a busy 2012, with Nanu Nanu clocking up over 80 live shows. In concert, synthesisers, laptops, keyboards and Laura’s multi-layered vocals combine to give an otherworldly sound. It must be demanding for just two people to stay on top of all that’s involved.
“You have to be really focused and on the ball the whole way through the gig,” says Laura. “It’s practice, really – the more you do anything the easier it is. Eventually, you get to a stage where you don’t have to consciously think about any of those things, you can just focus on delivery and performance, giving the song an extra boost.”
Nanu Nanu made their debut in Dubin just over a year ago, when the two given something of a baptism of fire.
“We were playing in Whelan’s at the One to Watch festival,” Laura recalls. “We were asked to play at the last minute, and obviously when we showed up we were nervous because it was our first ever gig – but then we found out we were headlining! We were on last, and the place was packed, there were so many great bands on before. It was great fun, a great way to start off gigging.”
Eight months later, Glitterface and Mirrorman were wowing punters at the Electric Picnic.
“It got a really good response,” says Laura of their Stradbally show. “We were playing in the Body and Soul area, on the Earthship Stage – even the name of the stage was perfect for us! Over the course of the gig loads of people saw us; there were constantly people walking up and staying for a few songs.
“The feedback from that gig was unbelievable. Over the course of the gig, there must have been hundreds of people that saw us. Weeks and weeks afterwards we had people coming up to us going ‘we saw you at Electric Picnic’.”
It’s hard to describe what Nanu Nanu do, but there’s no doubting their appeal. Their biography files them under the category ‘alien pop.’ Which of them coined this term?
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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