Covid collaboration bears rich fruit on musical front

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

Many musicians have felt the pandemic seep its way into every project they’ve attempted over the last few months. Be it the mental impacts, the toll on various industries or the loneliness that comes with isolation – a lot of artists have struggled to write about anything outside of the coronavirus this year.

For singer-songwriters Echo Harte and Flemingo (Daniel Fleming) however, an attempt to write a song about the changes brought on by Covid-19 sparked a psychedelic Indie-pop track about a difficult relationship.

Rain in June is set for release on Friday week, November 13. Though Echo and Daniel have been close friends since secondary school, it is the pair’s first joint release. And for Daniel, it is his first official release of any kind. They are now intent on building on a song that Echo describes as brighter than his own previous solo work.

“I got inspired by a poem by Dennis Mockler,” he recalls. “I’d just bought one of his poetry books and the first line of one of the poems was ‘Everything is changing’. I took that and stole it a little bit – that’s the first line of the song. It was relating to Covid. Everything is changing… Galway [is changing] more specifically. I can’t really explain why it became about a toxic relationship. It was just my experience and stuff I went through.”

Rain in June was written over beers and a shared guitar. The creative process was spontaneous in every sense. Echo argues that planned writing sessions can struggle to produce anything and they made sure to grasp the inspiration as it came to them. The duo was aided by the background plucking of another friend, Denes Boka.

“We were having a few drinks and just jamming,” Echo recalls. “Flemingo started strumming those opening chords and I really liked the sound of them. It’s not something that I would’ve done so I just said ‘Oh keep playing that’. I scribbled loads of lyrics down and loads of ideas. The three of us had inputs.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app

The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.