in search of Old Earth 👴🏻🌍

I hope that they stop viewing themselves as fallen popstars and realise that they’re being exploited. They can get by without it. Build something more genuine.

I interviewed Rory Sweeney live at the launch of his album Old Earth recently. I didn't get any video of it, and the only footage I've been able to catch of it was filmed on a Nintendo 3DS, complete with the stereoscopic lenses swinging around to reveal a reader downing his drink when I say the phrase “post-streaming age” during the event. I'm a predictable sort, I think. I think if you counted the number of articles I put out that mention the same handful of names — Rory, Curtisy, Stella, Alex etc. — you'd end up with every article on here.

Old Earth, by Rory Sweeney

10 track album

Rory SweeneyCaoimhín

It's also woefully predictable that I would come out the other side loving this album. It scratches the same itch as the first Fourth Best fourth-best album of the year, Big Dreams by Rachael Lavelle, in merging the dreamlike and the digital; the uniquely Irish identity fractured by medium and algorithm. When I asked Rory about it, I brought up this feeling; of the digital world as a spiritual one, of trying to find what it is we are in cyberspace, he told me about one of the animating ideas behind the album: Stone Tape Theory.

It’s basically this kind of pseudoscientific theory that ghosts and hauntings aren’t spirits but recordings of things onto the land or on objects and stuff like that. It’s kind of very silly but it’s explored in this film I really loved from the 70s called The Stone Tape.

This is kind of fried but I was thinking of reflecting Ireland in a kind of silly way, a kind of folkloric way, thinking about the land and the internet in a similar kind of way. It’s all about memory.

Sweeney was clearly a little nervous when he stepped up to that stage. The tape had just stopped on a presentation of the record with full-length visuals by Diarmuid Farrell, and there we were as silhouettes in front of two giant emoji: 👨‍🦳🌍.

We took the journey through landscape hymns, ambient grime, echoic keening, mangled breakbeats, synths warbling as morphed tapes, a Car in the Medieval Times, odes to the dancefloor, meditative interplay between lush synths and textured, layered piano, Gaelic Scooby-Doo-inflected hedonistic hip-hop, aoe2_adult_grunt_4.wav, sonic weapons. Farrell's visuals played with nature and supernature, surveillance, time and memory as texture, with the limits of digital precision.

As much as we'd seen, Rory clearly just witnessed five years of his life happening at once. For an instant, he looked nervous. The first thing I could think to ask is simply "How are you feeling?"

Good - really nervous - really good. It's a nice feeling; this is exactly what I wanted to make, and making the songs were a not of nice memories with good friends... It's been really lovely. I'm really nervous, but it feels great.

Then all at once, he was locked in.

There's an immense passion for the work of creating music throughout our conversation and across the record itself; in the variety of collaborators and approaches through which it flows. Where his last full-length outing Irish Hash Mafia was a nexus for the sillier and looser ends of Irish hip-hop, this one goes further without losing its feet. For that alone it would be a classic on this site, but I mean, it's also really good. Despite being described by Sweeney as "the least collaborative thing I've ever done", it both celebrates the community that it lives in and gives it shape. Whether that be from inspiration — Sweeney cites Bird Drum as one tune that started out as an ambient blanket of sound that was transformed by reaction to a Baliboc DJ set — or contribution, Sweeney's record acts once more as a point from which going any direction will yield results; be it to follow the songwriting talents of RÓIS, Saoirse Miller, or Emily Beattie; the brutalist grime of EMBY; the fried production of Sluice Valve and the new wave of Irish underground; the gabber mania of Julia Louise Knifefist and the wider Bitten Twice crew; Ushmush's legacy as the only Irish-language dancehall MC; pulling up in a car in the medieval times, "in a limo going zimmo in the medieval times".

Old Earth made a pretty surprising run at the Irish alternative charts via BlankBar and Anthem Vinyl. It's deeply, deeply refreshing to see this kind of pull for an album with no Spotify presence, never mind coverage. A better Irish music landscape is possible. You won't stop me saying "post-streaming" I fear. Recorded music is barely a century old, the very idea of a singer-songwriter only a handful of decades. The medium has been in constant flux, and risky bets like this show that it is not yet stabilised into something that won't work for us. We touch on that one briefly in the rest of the chat below.

See Rory Sweeney with support from Ian Nyquist in Tengu this Friday. More about that Ian Nyquist fella soon on Fourth Best I think. Cork crew can catch him on the 19th at a SPACES gig, news to follow. And on the 22nd, the Irish Hash Mafia will ride again back in Tengu.

a quick chat at the Old Earth album launch

Fourth Best: I wanted to ask: what was the process of this record coming together? You've kind of been doing everything in every variation of Irish music for so long — I think it was Sloucho who described you as being beloved in every boreen of the country. What separates Solo Rory from Producer Rory in the process? Is there a way you enter the studio, does the project come together over the years? You've said this one took a few years, right?

Rory Sweeney: Generally if it's something that really excites me, I just hold onto it for myself. Production work for others is often about making something simple that lets them shine - in that case it's not really about me. If I make something that I feel like I haven't heard before then that's usually when I'm making solo music. If I have no idea what I'm doing, that's when I'm making solo music, if you know what I mean.

FB: This album came together in a few different contexts, right? You had the residency in the Regional Cultural Centre up in Letterkenny; was getting out of the urban environment and closer to nature something that shaped the record, were these ideas already circulating at that time?

RS: A little bit. Only one song was written in the RCC but I really developed them a lot. A big thing early on was that I wanted to make longer songs - a kind of push back against my attention going out the window. There was a big moment when Lankum’s newest album came out two years where I realised people really are into long songs, and I wanted to make them. That was what made the album more than anything; I don’t think it was that I was in nature more than I would be normally or something - but the one song I did write in the RCC has loads of river recordings and is much more kind of happy and stuff. Maybe there’s something there.

FB: You used that Anto Boyle clip again…

RS: It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

FB: Is that the relationship you have with the sounds on the record as a whole? That you’re revisiting them, recontextualizing them?

RS: I was thinking about something really fried, internet and tech kind of vibe - and it led me back to that video of Boyle going mad at me and saying I was at some lizard sex rave. He only got there by being on the internet all the time.

FB: Your process is obviously very collaborative: do you come to collaborators with these ideas, do they come together in the studio etc? Like I think you had on the liner notes that you made a bunch of the songs at “Bus Éireann”

RS: A bunch of tunes were made on the bus. The EMBY tune and a bunch of others. The only person who I really sought to work with was Saoirse Miller… Knifefist as well. But the collabs really did come together when I was just hanging out with people, just working on their music and asking them to play on stuff real quickly. It’s the least collaborative thing I’ve done - the tunes kind of came together naturally.

FB: I have something you wrote for that project Carlos Danger Presents Irish Hash Mafia: 

“Myself and a lot of the artists here are starting to get caught up in the cogs of the music industry and I think its important to put out this mixtape as an archive of the free spirited sounds we’ve been exploring together over the past 2-3 years. No career stuff in mind, just us hanging out, having fun and sharing our passion for music. These are moments I will always cherish and I love yiz to bits.”

Is that something you’ve lost since that freer stuff? Or something that you’ve managed to preserve in the new album.

RS: It’s hard to say. It was made in a similar way to some of that Hash Mafia stuff. Hash Mafia was put together in about two weeks. This took five years. I can’t lie - I’m a bit burnt out from the album release process and the next thing might be more DIY. 

FB: I’ve a list of your inspriations from the press release here: Autechtre, Lee Bannon, The Haxan Cloak, Steve Reich, 0pn and Enya. Can you tell me what Enya means to you?

RS: Oh my god. Enya’s the goat. Her songs are perfect - I’m stating the obvious there. I copied a load of shit from Enya on the record in terms of how the instrumentation is put together. The only music I listen to is either really really intense or really peaceful and there’s not any real kind of middle ground. A lot of it was just it’s really funny to say it sounds like Autechre and Enya at the same time. It kind of does though!

FB: Were there songs flicking between the two extremes of peaceful and intense when you were putting together that record? Is there another world where the album’s called Unc World and it’s got ambient Knifefist and Saoirse Miller over breaks…

RS: I don’t know, kind of. I don’t really have a solid answer for that. Bird Drum started off as a nice song that’s now something confusing.

FB: You did the Local Baby podcast recently with Alice O’Brien and Dylan Murphy and you had this take which came across as “Irish artists need to realise they’re never making money from this”. Did shedding the profit motive play a part in making Old Earth, being comfortable doing something abstract and ambitious?

RS: Yeah, totally; but I mean I was also talking to Andy Connolly who used to DJ under Naive Ted and ran the Unscene label, who said it was pretty normal most of the time before and even with the internet for people who made underground music to make no money from it. I’m justkind of coming to accept that a bit more; like, I’d rather just be doing what I like.

I think if you’re trying to make money from music, Ireland’s the wrong place to be. I don’t think you will anyway. I think the music industry is dust. I think it’s over. There’s amazing music coming out all the time, though.

FB: There’s been a big conversation about an Irish cultural revival of late - do you think it’s that it’s become more acceptable to frame Irish culture in the media? I feel like when it comes to my own coverage: the art has always been being made. Dublin has always been a fascinating place to observe music.

RS: Yeah, it’s hard to say. It feels like there’s been amazing Irish revival stuff that’s real legit and also paddywhackery at the same time. It’s hard to make a solid call: I guess it is happening? This year has been the best year for Irish music I’ve ever heard. All those amazing underground rappers 18-19 making unbelievable autotune tunes, Ian Nyquist’s album was amazing, all that folk music coming out… There’s definitely somehting really great going on right now.

FB: Your album’s kind of in the middle of all of that, right? You had Sluice Valve co-produce that track, you have a lot of infleunce on the traditional side, you have artists like RÓIS who are really pushing things forward for the scene present on it. Do you think that it came to a point where this was the right environment or the right time to put this out?

Honestly, I just needed to get it out. If I waited any longer, I wouldn’t have. Five years is a stupid amount of time to be making an album — so, so stupid.

FB: You’re taking this one on tour I assume? The AV setup you have is incredible, shout out to Diarmuid.

RS: I’m very fortunate this year to be playing abroad a bit more; I’ll do a couple dates in Ireland: hopefully nice kind of evening sit-down shows. I played a church earlier this year; I want to do more church gigs. Hopefully then Edinburgh, London, Utrecht, hopefully Paris, Prague as well. I just know Irish people there, I’m not that hot.

I don’t have a next move. There’s nothing ready, nothing done.

FB: Is the Carlos Danger mask calling to you?

RS: There’s three Hash Mafia records that could still come out. There’s so much music sitting around there. Respect to the boys - they’re massive stunners, but the music is never coming out. Most disorganised people in the entire world. It was a nightmare getting that record together.

If there was a Hash Mafia 2 I’d try to work with the younger guys who I think are amazing. ND the II, C2, Beddyminaj, loads of those guys are having their moment. 

FB: It’s really inspiring to me that that scene moves in a way that isn’t on Spotify or any of the existing infrastructure.

No infrastructure. No support. Nothing from RTÉ or anything like that.

FB: I’ve said before that my favourite Deathtoricky song is a wav he was just handing out on Discord…

The old Rixler, like. He’s so good.

FB: You left Spotify this year obviously. [crowd cheering] 

RS: Yeah. Fuck Spotify.

FB: I used to do Spotify stuff for a small label. I think this is the first year we’re getting literally zero income for that. Do you have advice for people who are trying to figure out putting music out in the post-streaming age? [man in crowd waiting for me to say “post-streaming age downs his pint]

RS: I definitely think that the most important thing is that people need to know their work is the very reason that Spotify still exists. Not just for artists, I feel like we’ve been pretty unsuccessful in getting people off Spotify. We all enable this thing. Especially for younger artists: I hope that they stop viewing themselves as fallen popstars and realise that they’re being exploited. They can get by without it. Build something more genuine.

Entrance Places was the only tune off this I put on Spotify. I was looking at the statistics on it. It’s a six minute song I spent two years making and 95% of people didn’t listen to more than one second. The first second is just a tree creaking. What song have you heard for one second and knew you were going to hate? Apart from like, Drake?

It’s not legit. The numbers are bullshit. Any time I’ve been streaming well, I haven’t sold any tickets.

FB: And look at this… [crowd cheers for like 20 seconds]
Aside from the underground kids, what are you excited about in Irish music right now?

I was just on the radio gushing about that Ian Nyqusit record. It’s my favourite album to come out this year. It’s incredible electronic bodhrán music, it’s fucking insane. One of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard. 

Ana Palindrome, Cormorant Tree Oh, Stella and the Dreaming… there’s just so many people putting out absolutely incredible, mind-boggling music. I’d be here forever to be real with you.

FB: You’re here in Dublin for a long time, then?

RS: Defo. When I was living in Manchester I had a nice living situation and cheap rent but I just missed the craic. Dublin’s the best place in the world, I love Dublin. I’ll be here for a really long time. Definitely not London anyway. Fuck that craic.

FB: Finally, what advice do you have for listeners and musicians in the room?

RS: Streaming is ruining our listening habits and our creation habits. Even if you want to download my album off of Soulseek, at least you’ll listen to it. That’s a lot more important. Break the habit - I’m struggling with that one too. 

Liked this article? Check out one of the hundred artists mentioned above. There is something for everyone in here I promise. This interview was what finally convinced me to get to Ian Nyquist's record - I was surrounded by deafening hype about it for months and wanted to let the dust settle before diving in. It is, in fact that good - and if you're the sort of person who could read a 3,000 word article about Rory Sweeney you'll like that one too.

See you once again in December with the Fourth Best fourth-best album of the year. I haven't chosen it just yet, but the list is getting shorter.

ruh roh.