Amano and Kalabanx: Two musical journeys threaded together and set for Cork airing

There's a lot to be said for the different factors that can stop people from fully pursuing a craft, a calling, or any other of life’s avenues — confidence, lack of opportunities, trauma, physical or mental health, or good auld ‘life getting in the way’.

There also comes a point for many people where, upon the point of being able to take the long view on their journeys so far, that one sees priorities changing, the old anxieties feeling… different, with a bit of clarity and self-advocacy.

As Garry McCarthy, a music producer better known to some as The Kabin studio’s head honcho GMCBeats, and multidisciplinary artist Amano Miura answer an early-morning Zoom call amid their busy schedules; it’s evident in the early going that their upcoming collaborative endeavour, extended-player Threads, represents a milestone for them both.

The former, shedding the skin of previous creative endeavour and the role of facilitator to explore his own inspirations, influences, and sound; the latter, returning to music after re-establishing her creative practice; both exploring aspects of the creative process, underlying motivations and new methods of expression, in a fusion of contemporary electronic influences, traditional Irish song forms, and themes of reconnection to self, to language, and to the land.

“I’ve been doing the rap stuff and The Kabin, they’ve been kind of the main focus over the last 20 years of my musical life,” says McCarthy.

“I’m always making beats, electronic stuff, and I’ve tons of beats that are just sitting there on my hard drive, and I’ve released a couple of bits, one track with Bony as Kalabanx, and one or two others. Nothing major like an EP or an album yet, but this project will be the first time that I’m fully comfortable and proud [that] this feels very complete, that this feels like it’s a real piece of work.

“It’s getting to explore what Kalabanx is all about, and the fact that I get to have Amano as a songwriter and vocalist, even almost like a co-producer on the songs as well. It’s allowing me to explore a part of myself, a part of my creativity that doesn’t get to see the light of day that much, something that I’ve had in the background for many years.”

“I’ve been playing music and writing songs seriously, I suppose, since I was in my mid-teens, and I did head off on a bit of a journey, up until I was about 20, as an acoustic pop singer-songwriter,” Amano says.

“I started making YouTube videos when I was a kid, and I ended up going on a good few dates of Orla Garland’s very first tour, and it kind-of went from there. I opened for a lot of bands in their early days, like The Academic, when I lived in Dublin. I was very young, and I had no idea what I was doing, and then I sort-of fell off the face of the earth, and I don’t have any regrets about that.

“Now it was about six, seven years of relative radio-silence for me, and I never thought I would make music again for a while, but in the past 12 months that all just sort of came crashing down dramatically, which... yeah, I don’t think it could have happened any other way.

“Now that I’m back in creative life, I’m not really married to any specific genre, or even artistic output. I’m a poet. I’m a songwriter. I guess working with Garry, I have some idea about how to give production notes. Now I’m moving between [English and Irish] languages, I would love to imagine a future for myself where I have Japanese in my life, my other culture; messing around with movement, dance, everything.”

The pair got working together after happening upon each other’s work while living in the same part of the city during covid. An initial jam with pals at McCarthy’s house as public restrictions were abating led to some back-and-forth on initial ideas, and the seeds were planted for the extended player’s processes.

“Getting to work on Threads was initially a motivation piece, with one of my best friends, to say ‘both of us have been ignoring our work, we need to get our s**t together and make something happen’, and we knew we’d work well together,” remarks Amano.

“Garry’s endless supply of beats... like, he’s not exaggerating, there’s a ridiculous amount of gold in there, and it’s been a beautiful challenge, and a really exciting opportunity for me to get to work in this way... working with a friend, but also just someone who is so brilliant at bringing out the best in other people, and seeing him also being able to put the best of himself into the work. It’s just been class.”

“I do remember being like, ‘you really should try to make a song’,” replies McCarthy. “One evening, alright, you recorded that sean-nós piece ‘Casadh an tSúgáin’ (‘The Twisting of the Rope’), and I just had it on my laptop, sneakily took that acapella and dragged it into this hip-hop beat I made during lockdown, and I kind of warped it to make it fit, because it wasn’t like typical four-four timing. I remember showing it to you... I don’t think you had the spark at that time — sorry, now, for using the word ‘spark’ — but I remember then it was maybe just over a year ago. I showed it to you again, you had just re-begun your creative journey, and then you were like, ‘okay, there’s something here, let’s do something with it’.

“We went up to the studio, it was actually on October 7, which was a bit crazy. We were in the Kabin, and we worked on [title track] ‘Thread’, I think we started working on [single] ‘Southwind’ that time, something I had, it was just lying there. I knew it was something that I was really proud of, but I felt like it needed something else, and Amano brought that back to life again, really.

“It’s been amazing to see Amano, even just separate to the stuff that we’re doing, doing so many gigs and collaborations and just exploring her creativity again, because I guess that’s the stuff that I love seeing, with the work that I do in the Kabin, seeing people be creative and seeing them find a new confidence in themselves, and creativity.”

“I had a huge block around singing,” adds Amano.

“I couldn’t even imagine, like, a year and a half ago, the idea of going on a mic and freestyling something or like, really improvising with other people. That night was exceptional, when we had a few people up in your apartment, but yeah, I think, on the flip side of that, I could also tell from from the tunes Garry was showing me from his back-catalogue of production stuff... ‘okay, you’re doing incredible work for so many people, but what about your voice, what about your sound?’. There was a mutual sense of wanting to encourage each other to push forward with that.

“Like, with ‘Southwind’, sampling Iarla Ó Líonáird, I remember hearing it, and I really didn’t think I’d be able to sing anything on top of it, because it’s such a complex beat, but it just sort-of happened, and it also just so happened that everything was in Irish, of course. I don’t think we knew it was going to be a fully Irish-language project until we left The Kabin that day.”

While The Kabin has long been a home for facilitation, learning, and performance in contemporary and traditional music — including beginner-friendly workshops and traditional sessions for adults, check thekabin.ie for more info — the decision to create an entire extended-player’s worth of Irish-language electronica formed another inflection point for both: while Miura is a fluent Gaelgóir, and an enthusiastic advocate for, and creator in, ár dteanga féin, McCarthy, like many of us, still suffers with self-consciousness around it, and a distance between heart and mouth is only now beginning to close.

“It’s a tough line for me to tiptoe on because I’ve gotten so much opportunity through having Irish right now,” says Amano.

“The way my creative [work] has come back with such a bang, I would say 75% of that is because I move in circles that speak Irish, and they do everything that they can to develop and put forward the language in different contexts.

“I’m also just not super self-conscious about it, like any time in my life that I’ve written in Irish, it’s just been because that feels right for me, and I’ve been ruminating about it recently, because there’s a lot of similar music after popping out, even though we started this work three years ago.

“The likes of Huartan coming on the scene with their ‘trad-tronica’, obviously Súil Amháin, and a lot of his work overlaps with some of the stuff that we’re putting out.

“I do sometimes feel that there is some sort of creative, energetic grid, [laughs] in the collective, and there’s only so much to draw down from at any one time, there’s only so much inspiration on that grid at any one time, and what wants to come through right now is future Irish, and that just feels very potent and alive.

“I think I don’t actually have any choice in the matter, that I’m here at this time, and this is what wants to be expressed, that’s a very airy-fairy way of expressing what I’m trying to say.

“On the flip side, I do think it’s so important. I’m somebody who, even if I don’t retain what I’m listening to, I love tuning into world music, lyrics that I don’t understand, cultural context in different modes of expression that I’m not necessarily seeking out, but that I happen upon.

“I think if Irish only exists within trad, the opportunities for people around the world who don’t speak Irish to do that are less and less, and what I see happening right now, is like, some sort of cosmic, airy sledgehammer, just like smashing through and saying, ‘no, all genres, all modes, are available, stop being self-conscious about it. It’s just a language!’. I think we really saw that with An Cailín Ciúin coming through, not a movie about Irish, but just a movie in Irish.

“I think that’s almost one of the catalysts that has allowed what’s happened in the last two years to unfold.”

“I genuinely would love to be able to be more comfortable with Irish, because I have worked with Gaelscoileanna in the past, and I do really enjoy it,” says McCarthy.

“I love trying to figure out flows in Irish, and rap in Irish, and this project is allowing me to take a few more baby steps towards being a bit more comfortable, and hopefully being around more circles where I can use a cúpla focail.

“I may never be completely fluent or anything like that, but to know that I am involved in something creatively and artistically related to the language, and that might be helping to promote the language in a tiny way, is really important to me.

“I came out of school not really not liking the language, but then in my early twenties, I remember getting this feeling like, ‘ah, Jesus, I want to be able to speak it more, I want to be able to explore it a little bit more’. We’re now starting to explore the Irish language a bit more at The Kabin, a lot of things are just starting to happen.

“We’re doing our first summer camp for some of the teens and kids as Gaeilge next week. Amano was actually going to come in on the Friday, which is just by chance as well, Amano is going to come in and do a performance at The Kabin on the Friday night, and it wasn’t like we planned for her to be there at the end of that summer camp, it was just like, ‘oh yeah, that makes sense’. There are also more initiatives in Knocknaheeny and the surrounding area to promote the language with the new Gaelscoil up there, so who knows, maybe in 10, 15, 20 years’ time, there could be a little pocket of a Gaeltacht up around Knocknaheeny.”

• Amano and Kalabanx’ singles ‘Thread’ and ‘Southwind’ are available on digital streaming services now.
• The full ‘Thread’ extended-player is due for release this summer, featuring guest contributions from Liam Ó Maonlaí and Ronán O’Snodaigh.
• Amano performs songs and storytelling live at the Kabin Studio in Knocknaheeny on Friday, July 5, at 8pm, in an all-ages, alcohol-free environment.
• Admission is free, but must be booked in advance at https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/amano-bilingual-song-and-story-live-at-the-kabin-studio-tickets-935932187367.
• Supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media’s Night-Time Economy Initiative.