Folk and R&B mix pays off for Wyvern Lingo

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Wyvern Lingo bring an alternative sound to folk music while also incorporating the influence of American R&B acts like Erykah Badu and TLC.

Hailing from Bray, the harmony-driven trio play Róisín Dubh on Saturday, December 5. The band are Karen Cowley (vocals, keyboards), Caoimhe Barry (vocals, drums) and Saoirse Duane (vocals, guitar). When Karen takes the call, she is in the middle of a ‘press day’.

“We got signed in April, so since then things have become a lot more official,” she says. “We’re doing press and pr all in one day. I’m only just back from Australia; I was singing backing vocals with Hozier. Our very clever publicist had this idea to do all the PR in one day, we’re in the zone now.”

The label Wyvern Lingo have signed to is Rubyworks, whose stable also includes Wallis Bird and Ryan Sheridan.

“They’re a great independent Irish label,” Karen says. “The last act they signed before us was Hozier – which is nice and encouraging! We get on with them really well, they’re very encouraging. It’s just being going from strength to strength.”

Wyvern Lingo’s latest single is Subside, a track that fuses the band’s three piece harmonies with an R&B groove. How did it come about?

“We recorded it in Germany in July,” Karen says. “We went to Cologne to work with a really great producer called Patrice Williams. He’s Sierra Leonian/German – which is a bit of a mouthful! He’s a very interesting mix of R&B, hip-hop and reggae, with a European perspective.

“Poor Patrice might’ve been a bit confused at first because we were referencing Jimi Hendrix and then TLC. It was quite a mix. But he was able to see what we meant with those American R&B references and then gritty rock as well.

“He saw that as a re-invention of the Bristol, trip hop sound from the nineties, bands like Massive Attack and Tricky,” she continues. “We hadn’t really thought of that, but it made a lot of sense to us when we listened to those albums.”

Thanks in no small part to their association with Hozier – whom Wyvern Lingo have opened for and played with – the trio drew an impressive crowd at this year’s Electric Picnic.

“It was incredible,” says Karen. “We’d been working really hard all summer, looking forward to the Electric Picnic. It was a big slot, we opened the Electric Arena, the second biggest stage.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.