Cork singer songwriter Sarah O'Moore set to launch single and debut EP 

“I SUPPOSE I’ve always listened to classic soul or “big” singers. Motown was always on in the house as well, and Nina Simone, for instance.”

Speaking over Zoom from her current residence in Berlin, singer and songwriter Sarah O’Moore conveys, in a markedly Northside Corkonian accent, the contrasts, comparisons and fundamental influences on a singing voice that nestles within pensive, downbeat electronica on her upcoming debut EP Social Paralysis.

Upcoming single ‘Forget What It Was’, taken from the EP, is due out May 4, and tackles the reality of living in an abusive intimate relationship.

“I was reading James Joyce’s novel Dubliners, and I wanted to challenge myself to take those vignettes and themes, and put them in a contemporary setting, really. Capturing stories of addiction, domestic violence, the detail of, like, neglected youth, these are so prevalent within our society, and it’s important to shine a light on that... the spirit of the human condition as well, some of these characters are all quite stagnant, and they’re quite limited, as well, there’s no movement forward, they’re kind of stuck in their own cycles.”

O’Moore, originally hailing from Glanmire, spent time in Cork studying at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa’s Music Management and Sound course before deciding to further her studies in Bristol, at that city’s campus of BIMM (the former British and Irish Modern Music Institute), a leading private music conservatory.

I only knew I could sing really at the age of 14 or 15, or something like that, and then I did my vocal lessons at the Cork School of Music, and at the age of 18, I went to CSN, and did Music Management and Sound for the year. 

"I was looking at my own opportunities in Cork... there was a lot of talk about BIMM among people who were in the CSN course, and I was like, ‘what’s BIMM? I don’t even know what that is’.”

Bristol strikes your writer as an immediate influence, with ‘Forget What It Was’ leaning very heavily into the trip-hop sound that emerged from Bristol in the 1990s, leading local upstarts like Portishead and Massive Attack into the mainstream limelight, and eventual music legend.

“It just made sense for me to go to the UK, to experience it, because that’s my genre of music anyway, and just kind of immerse myself and become independent, grow my voice. And to be honest, I did grow my voice in Bristol, because there’s so much sound and there’s such a big underground scene there also. So, yeah… but that’s not to say I didn’t learn a lot from Cork, we have a lot of storytellers and characters as well, and we love it, we love a good story.”

As touched upon earlier, the Social Paralysis EP seeks to pull together commonalities between the tragedies endured by the Dubliners of Joyce’s literary imaginings and the post-austerity stasis into which the so-called ‘millennial’ generation emerged, first into economic ruin at the end of the property bubble, then navigating through the derangement of supranational austerity campaigns and local socioeconomic stagnation, only to arrive at the mis-shapen form that has emerged from the national wreck, where a housing crisis threatens to fracture society while over 100,000 units remain empty, and inequality is rife along several faultlines in one of the richest countries in Europe.

“[Joyce] wanted to hold the lens up to Dublin and actually see what exactly Dublin was, actually to see the truth of what it, and what exactly was happening there. It’s an important sentiment, and it really drilled home that this person from the 20th Century, one of the greatest writers of all time... that these things are so prevailing within our society as well, there’s still a relation to that.

“And I think it’s easy for people to go into a spiral when they don’t see anything, when there’s no hope, and there’s no direction, they don’t know where they’re gonna go. I kind of wanted to capture that feeling, because, especially during covid, for myself, personally, I didn’t know where to navigate myself or what was going to be my next move... it’s just looking at that harshness, that darkness that is related to what’s within all of us, really, but we’re too scared to confront it, to speak about the mundane and stagnation.”

At the time of interview, just under two weeks prior to publication, O’Moore and your writer got to talking about the schism that’s emerged in Berlin’s expansive arts and culture scenes regarding the national response to the situation in Gaza, and the collective punishment being visited on ordinary Palestinians.

It was urgent at the time, with broader Irish perceptions of once-prestigious Berliner arts and music institutions changing for the worse in the reactionary nature of some responses, event cancellations and severing of ties with residents, staff and artists.

In the subsequent light of a police break-up of an Irish-language event in the city called in response to a crackdown on gatherings in languages other than German or English, admonished by Conradh na Gaeilge as ‘a disgrace’, it must feel all the more nerve-wracking.

“They do not open up conversation, they close the door. It’s sad because you try to have a conversation and they’re completely closed, like, no, it’s really, it’s a really delicate matter. It’s human lives. There’s such a big art scene here as well, but it’s very divided. It’s such an open city, people can be very open minded... It’s very divided. I don’t see how people don’t see the fault in it, or how some people feel it’s justified. I’m like, ‘no way’. But I’m delighted with what Ireland’s doing, with the stance and everything. It’s important to speak out, and just kind of see it for what it is.”

Although O’Moore doesn’t have hometown gigs lined up as yet to launch the EP in Ireland, she’s kept going in the meantime in her adopted home city, with upcoming performances and more music to follow.

“When the EP is released, I’ll hopefully be doing some gigs around Berlin. For the summer, I already have singles and stuff lined up in my head, and what I want to do. There’s definitely more music happening.”

•  Sarah O’Moore’s next single, ‘Forget What It Was’, releases on May 4 across digital streaming platforms, with debut EP Social Paralysis to follow on May 28.