Cobh psych-pop trio The Burma stepping up, with headline show at St Luke's and new album 

From what your writer has heard of Cork trio The Burma’s second long-player ‘Crazy Dreams and Cruel Realities’, due for release across streaming services and such tomorrow, there’s something of a duality at play - current single ‘Holiday’ is a gentle slice of pop whimsy, that serves to remind your writer of Leeside contemporaries like Yenkee, while ‘The Hard Ground’ reaches further back into jangle-pop optimism/naiveté, but ‘23’ hints at darker depths, conjuring images of empty pubs downtown in an alternate-reality Cóbh steeped in the sombre Americana of the band’s influences.

It all bodes well for a record whose creation has helped bring the three-piece out of the immediate post-crisis circumstance, and into the present, by way of a self-imposed deadline of a year in which to write, record, produce and release, following the long road to debut LP ‘Sucker for Stars’.

"It was an interesting album for us, actually, because our first album was a mix of older songs and newer songs," says drummer Cian Doherty. "Some of the songs were ten years old on the first album, whereas on this second album, all ten songs were written in the last twelve months, so it was a real reflection of where we are now, and how we sound right now. It was interesting to hear the reviews that we've gotten and stuff, and we were especially listening out because of that, y'know, because it was a very different album for us to record and write."

"We tried from the outset to try to make it cohesive, like, as an album, but it ended up having two parts to it,” adds vocalist Tony O’Donovan. “There's a darker, druggier side, then there's the bright, poppy stuff - that's where the album title stemmed from, then, we wanted to represent the duality of the album.”

That’s one way of dealing with the old cliché of the “difficult second album”, then: the band has come in for high praise from the likes of Hot Press and the India edition of Rolling Stone, as well as evening radio play on 2FM, and in response, simply put their heads down and got on with following their individual and collective muses.

"We thought it was an easy change for us to make from the first album," says O'Donovan. "All the tunes were well thought-out before going into the studio [for their first LP], everything was well mapped out. But this time we had a few tunes that were like that, and another few were just sketches - we had our old way of writing tunes, but space to experiment, as well."

"You just have to trust yourself. I tried not to think about it too much. The songwriting approach was just "if it sounded good in there, leave it in", and it kind-of becomes itself, y'know. Try and write it to the music, and afterward, let it make sense to yourself, even if you didn't know what you were saying in the first place. There was a lot of that."

Directing this newfound immediacy was producer and engineer Christian Best at his Monique studios in East Cork, whose steady hand behind the boards helped get the album over the line in the span of time the lads gave themselves.

“We released our first album in October last year, and by November we were in the studio recording our three singles for the second album, so we went in, and got those done, then we did a couple of more blocks [of recording] then, in the first or the second quarter of this year,” says Doherty.

“Once we got everything recorded, we just made a plan to be on top of the mixes, when the mixes came back from Christian - we were on top of them, straight away, taking notes and that night, we had a pretty good idea of how happy or not happy we were with the mix, and any changes we were going to make, whereas last time we kind of sat on it for a while.”

Much the same as last time, however, the band are self-releasing the record, and had to account for the seemingly now-permanent delays in getting independent records pressed, in the face of seemingly endless pressure at vinyl production facilities to take bulk orders from the major labels.

Much the same as every other aspect of the musician condition in 2023, it’s been a matter of trial and error for the Burma, as much as it has been about keeping the faith.

"I think you have to be really analytical of yourself," opines Doherty. "You have to always analyse what you're doing, what you could have done better, and, from us doing that over the years, we've been able to manage it ourselves, but we still find it tough, a lot of the time. We have a great booking agent, Mark Downing from AMA, and he's been a great support to us, and even just a great person to get opinions on, and stuff like that.

“It's really tough for bands out there, for any act. But luckily, I think it's easier for bands sometimes when you have other people to depend on. As long as you are always looking to progress and you're always looking to improve on what you're doing, y'know, all going well, you'll end up where you are meant to be."

The next stop on that road for The Burma is Live at St Luke’s on Saturday October 14, to help launch the record in a headlining gig at the Northside’s temple of sound.

"We knew it was ambitious, but we booked it about eight months ahead, we said 'look, let's go for it', it'll look great if we get a crowd',” says O’Donovan. “Ticket sales are going really well, we're glad we did take a shot. It was something we wanted to do, and it's worked well. We've put a lot of work into it, selling tickets and stuff, and we're still doing it. It was just about stepping up and pushing ourselves and trying to just try and do more."

The Burma play Live at St Luke’s on Saturday, October 14. The band’s second album, ‘Crazy Dreams and Cruel Realities’, is available tomorrow for streaming and download at theburma.bandcamp.com.