|
The Tycho Brahe - Love Life Surprising and delighting many upon its release last year, The Tycho Brahe's debut album 'This Is' found few detractors. At a push, the most frustrating aspect of the album was its relatively short running time, a criticism that cannot be levelled at 'Love Life'. Apparently the first ever studio recorded double album by an Irish band, 'Love Life' certainly does not aim low. The Tycho Brahe seem to relish the opportunity to tear into as many styles and weird noises as they can. There are a few slip-ups along the way mind you, but overall they come away with an aggregate victory over the two legs of the album. The music laid down by Diarmuid MacDiarmada and Donal O'Mahony is endlessly inventive, and provides a suitably complex backing to one of the most listenable voices in music. Carol Keogh's voice runs through the fabric of this record, displaying the same pop sensibilities from her days with the Plague Monkeys, but here interwoven with an ever-growing array of instruments and sounds that sets this band apart from their Irish contemporaries. It's possible to sing along to tracks such as 'Steel Wheels' or 'Golden Wedding', yet these sit side by side with long instrumentals or strange interludes like 'The Sun King'. The net is cast so wide that something here must catch your attention. On occasion, particularly on the second disc, there are tracks that are way off where the mark should be, but with a sound this recklessly experimental it's hard to say which avenues shouldn't be explored. Above all else, the Tycho Brahe's music has the element of surprise, and it is hard to place a value on that. Ray Donoghue, 4/5 read here
BBC.co.uk Various Artists Compiled by label boss Diarmuid MacDiarmada, the album
ranges from offbeam pop to unsettling ambient soundscape to hysterical
jazz/punk thrash, but still there seems to be some kind of thread
holding it all together. It opens with the wide-eyed, swooningly lovely
"Childless' by Dublin's The Tycho Brahe (of whom Mr MacDiarmada's
a member). On the strength of this it's now my life's mission to obtain
their entire back catalogue (there's not much of it, by the way).
If Jane Siberry had joined Pram, it might sound like something like
this, but that's a glib comparison that doesn't really do them justice.
Gorgeous.
Woah – this threw us a curve. ‘Lucky The Bee’ is up-beat, compact, economic and (whisper it) catchy, with Carol Keogh wrapping her comely tonsils and artful words around the Tycho’s poppiest tune, embellished with quite delightful keyboard textures and white funk lite guitar. If the TB keep moving in this direction, they’re gonna end up the victims of daytime radio play. Hannah Hamilton claus.com - October 2003 "So much for the Tycho Brahe. With their album
- 'Love Life' - they manage to produce one of the best albums to come
from the Irish music scene this year and then they ruin the good work
by spawning possibly the worst. Frankly, the Tycho Brahe took it a
bridge (or maybe in this case a middle eight) too far. Their new collection,
the cleverly packaged and immaculately produced 'Love Life' is a double,
a loosely thematic double too, with one CD dedicated to Love and the
second to Life. It’s an aural equivalent of the fabled 'Game
of Two Halves' blessed and cursed in equal part with very marked peaks
and troughs." Read
the review BBC.co.uk All the tracks are very organic, with beautiful, poetic lyrics. There's a relaxed feel about everything; throughout the strings are played without vibrato, everything is pared down; sounds are used for their warmth, daubed onto a freeform canvas, and everything's given room to breathe. The album starts with "Sailing at Half Mast" which has a lilting rhythm underpinning it throughout with the words... 'If I'm half what I should be, Former Plague Monkey Carol Keogh's distinctive voice uses her immaculate poetry to take snapshots of life, holding onto sentiments that jigsaw into an entire song. For example, Listless: "In a plane full of people, who are listlessly eating and wordlessly singing, to the world of the working. And full-on rush hour traffic welcome home". The busy chaos is reflected in the tempo and distorted drums, and in Carol not being able to get her words out for laughing. But finally, through the blasts of strings and saxophone, it feels as though all the humans and machinery have gone to bed, leaving only the saxophones to wash back and forth, like the incoming tide. The strings that begin "Your house from mine" are beautiful and real. You can hear the slow vibrato and the coarseness of open strings - and then the best song, for me, begins. The line 'Bloody lows, bloody highs' can get stuck in your head for hours, days. The Tycho Brahe take a sentiment and build it into something else through repetition. The core of the song is that line, and 'I need to see your house from mine'. Both represent an unsettlement, and perhaps loneliness that can be cured by knowledge of another. This gives the song a simultaneous air of sadness and euphoria. The Tycho Brahe are also confident enough to leave us with a couple of whimsical jams like "Emily is going"; a little finger picking with the occasional piano plink, in accompaniment to the sound of children playing. Likewise, "Tycho Brahe" ends with a car alarm in the background. The is a self assured, beautiful and understated album. I only hope that their success is huge but doesn't stop them from making such fantastic music in the future. Lucy Davies These days it's not often you'll lament an album for being too short, but that's a sigh you'll breathe time and time again with this one. The name chosen by former Plague Monkeys duo Carol Keogh and Donal O'Mahony and Jimmy Cake man Diarmuid Mac Diarmada for their debut album – that of a Danish astronomer - is wilfully obscure, the tracks on it are anything but. While Keogh's vocals are unmistakable there's a level of fooling around here which was never part of the Plague Monkeys. It's an album that's both playful ('Hooga Chakka' 'Listless') and serious ('Your House From Mine', 'Unplanned') and has the intimacy big bands waste even bigger cheques trying to capture. There's no set sound or pieces and you get the feeling that this band can steer itself any way and with anyone its trio so desire. Definitely one to listen to and see stars. Harry Guerin, 4/5 thumped.com - June 3 2003 It's gorgeous, this. Home recorded super smart indie-pop, manned by 2 boys and steered into heart warming, soul stirring territory by Carol Keogh, a lady blessed with some utterly sublime vocal chords. Sublime seems an apt word to spread across this whole release actually, the attention to detail and the quality of sound is superbly intricate throughout, spindly guitars weave patterns around gently pressing drum machine patterns, live strings are meshed with splashes of gorgeous mellotron, and that voice lends a huge dollop of world weary heartache to the whole puzzle. Opener Halfmast declares that 'Part of me was a sea
shanty' and 'I'm as empty as pockets' before settling into an utterly
intoxicating coda of sound, and the feeling that you're listening
to something a little special doesn't let up til you get to the closing
Now Here. References to the likes of The Notwist and Pinback can be
sloppily bandied about but the longer this record plays out the cheaper
such comparisons seem to become. A superb first offering. read
here
Hot Press Magazine - September 9 2002 I love the gutsy assertiveness of a “This Is...” title. Face it, it’s a damn sight better than the boring old “Introducing...” tag for a debut album, and far more preferable to the common cop out of going eponymous. The Tycho Brahe are the latest Dublin ensemble of marvellous mavericks, who number former Plague Monkeys Donal O’Mahony and Carol Keogh in their ranks alongside the noted multi-instrumentalist in David Kitt’s band, Diarmuid MacDiarmada. Daniel Figgis and our own Kim Porcelli also contribute some “processed” harmonium and cello respectively – so perhaps that should read Kim Porcellist! (Kaboum! Sorry Kim.) It’s a joy to hear this miniature cast of local
luminaries weave such a wonderful The lyrical standard is also impressively high (eg, “The history of love has not been written/Just the history of its thieves/That is history’s brief” – ‘Tycho Brahe’) and the packaging and cover art are suitably elegant and minimally ornate. I’d imagine the Danish astronomer from whom they lift their name is smiling down from the heavens approvingly. Eamon Sweeney Live Review - Spirit Store This was the first time I had seen The Tycho Brahe outside Dublin, and without the accompanying musicians they often have with them there. The intimate setting of the Spirit Store (what a fab venue!) was perfect for the “stripped down” format of simply the three band members. Opener Your House from Mine missed Kim Porcelli’s cello for depth, but after this the sheer musicianship of Donal and Diarmuid shone out beside Carol Keogh’s sublime vocals. Highlights included The Internal Life of Animals and Half Mast off the first album This Is…, with Mountain, Imprint, Made In the Fire, Defiance and Spike and the Wheel shining from the current Love Life double CD. Carol generously gave the lads a break and sang a haunting a cappella version of Bright Eyes – there are few people who can pull this off without sounding cheesy, but Carol is certainly one of them. I would like to see the guys return the favour, give Carol a breather and perform some of their own wonderful music (Diarmuid tantalisingly broke out a few bars of Ink in the Moon’s Milk between numbers!). It was an honour and a privilege to see three such talented musicians, who so clearly love their craft, perform at the top of their game in so warm and cosy a venue. Justine O'Flanagan read
here
INTERVIEWS : The Event Guide - 2003 Sheer Art Attack "Beautifully executed and elegantly packaged, 'Love
Life' is the recently released second album by Dublin-based band The
Tycho Brahe, and its ambitious, and totally satisfying collection
of songs make up the double CD worth of material. Founder member Donal
O'Mahony gives us some background details on its creation." Read
the interview
(most links stolen from fansite - Irish Music Central) |
join the mailing-list:
To join enter your email address to get news about gigs, releases and exclusive mp3s.