The Echotal Project, borne from a need to explore two strands of my creative work..
David Rooney talks candidly about finding his music source in the same well as his visual art.
“When I create as an artist, it comes from somewhere dark and deep, it almost has nothing to do with me as a person..all I have to do is get out of the way and let it happen”
David, can you describe the inspiration behind Echotal?
For more than three decades, I have worked as a visual artist and a contributor to Hot Press and other publications, documenting turbulent times in Ireland through editorial illustrations. Throughout, music has been a constant companion.
It took a long time and some guidance to realize that my own compositions could be sourced from the same well as the art.
In recent years I’ve concentrated on themes relating to history, having created 100 illustrations for the BBC/RTE co production ‘The Story of Ireland’. Titanic Museum, Belfast, followed, then many other museums in the UK from Stonehenge to Lindesfarne have seen me continue to explore what are dark tales. The Royal Irish Academy published ‘1916 Portraits and Lives’, 40 portraits of those involved in The Rising on both sides brought me back to Irish history with an exhibition at Kilmainham Gaol in 2016.
With that background, The Echotal project was borne out of a need to explore the two strands of my creative world — visual art and music and we have attempted to interweave both in this EP, a soundscape which mixes instrumental and lyric driven songs.
Echotal was recorded near home at the foot of the Sugarloaf in Co. Wicklow. Produced, engineered and mastered by Torsten Kinsella of ‘God Is An Astronaut’, who have their studio just down the road. Around the same time I did the artwork for his band’s latest release ‘Ghost Tapes #10’. Torsten came to one of my shows and identified the gap between the art and the music, he offered to help marry the two,and has been totally consistent and unwavering as a guide throughout this endeavour.
Echotal’s chief musical collaborator is multi-instrumentalist Jay Wison, who has toured and arranged for James Vincent McMorrow, and was part of the band that worked on my debut album ‘Bound Together’ in 2017. The other collaborators on the project are London Based cellist and composer Jo Quail, producer Ross Tones (aka Throwing Snow) and Hannah Cartwright of Snow Ghosts. All of whom made contributions that further distilled what we were trying to do, while also managing to chart new territory for us the explore in the future. I am so grateful for the gift of their talents.
Can you tell us about the “Glencoe” piece, a historically harrowing tale. How did this piece come about?
The ‘Glencoe’ track was co written with Torsten Kinsella and Jay Wilson, it came as a response to a short animated sequence that I had already worked on on Glencoe, commissioned by the National Trust for Scotland’s Glencoe Visitor Centre. The centre kindly gave us permission to expand the animated sequence to a full length video. So it’s the first time I have ‘written music for film’, the music was a response to the images, once we had the main music theme I expanded the video with animator Ali Greene.The original massacre scene is animated by Stonesoup ,and is on view in the Glencoe Visitor centre as part of a film there telling the history of the place.
Watch Echotal — Glencoe here: https://youtu.be/Qxp1x_Pqdqo
The album track “Hiding” has shades of Harrison, and also Simon & Garfunkel on harmonies, can you expand a little on this songs theme and emotion?
‘Hiding’ started out as two songs… Torsten spotted a link between them, the combination seemed to make the whole song more filmic and mysterious. Harmony would be a big thing for me, and Jay has a wonderful voice. It’s like stirring cream into a sauce… and my vocal sauce needs that cream! I love the ghostly ending, when we recorded it there was a gale blowing down from the Sugarloaf. It was another brilliant production idea of Torsten’s to sample that and tweak it for the ending. The EP is a sample menu of sorts, depending on the reaction we’ll do more songs or instrumentals… or both. I’m very excited about the other song ‘Endless’ where the Snow Ghosts created a completely different mood and soundscape by taking just a few lines of mine and layering them, it was from a lengthy track we asked them to remix. We thought a remix as a bonus would be nice for the release but when we heard what they did we scrapped the original. I had also created album artwork for UK based Snow Ghosts hence the relationship.
Both visual art (illustration) and music are very much part of your artistic process, which art form is the dominant means of expression for you? and why?
When I create as an artist it comes from somewhere dark and deep, it almost has little to do with me the person who is trying to explain the process here… all I have to do is get out of the way and let it happen. That sounds pretentious but it’s the truth for anything remotely good I do. The person who draws the pictures is the child who doesn’t know it’s getting dark outside, who is only barely aware of his mother calling him for his tea… it’s being lost, the comfort of being totally lost in something….but hiding in a way.
The music is very different.I have to be present and I have to feel it if it is going to work, if it is going to connect with a listener. Also the tree I draw is the tree I draw… when you look at it, it is what it is. The tree created in music will change depending on the listener, the mood of the other musicians, the production, the venue if it is live.
Getting involved with creating and writing music has thought me so much. My first solo gig of original songs was in Nov 2014, a support slot for a small fund raising event with Glen Hansard as the main attraction. Having worked for HotPress for so long, many Irish musicians are familiar with my work, Glen has been very supportive and Declan O’Rourke produced by debut album. Art was traded for services there too.
Can you describe how collaborative matches work for you? Are they evolved artistic friendships?
The musical collaborative matches have all come from the artwork. The dark nature of my work appealed to ‘God Is An Astronaut’, the artwork for their new album ‘Ghost Tapes#10’ is a disintegrating Boeing 737 hovering above the ground…it perfectly fits the music I think. One of the tracks conjured up this image, a recurrent dream I had been having, a dream I haven’t had since creating the artwork!
Snow Ghosts got in touch having seen a repeat of ‘The Story of Ireland’ on BBC4, they were struck by a massacre scene after the battle of Clontarf and thought that my style would work for their new album at the time,‘A Quiet Ritual’. These relationships then have fed into the music helping me find a connection with the aesthetic the art naturally possesses, and trying to blend the two.
What make is your guitar?
I’ve been playing guitar since school in L.S.U convent in Banagher, we moved to nearby Eyrecourt Co. Galway in 1976. My Dad bought me a lovely copy of a Gibson Dove (the guitar Elvis was using shortly before his death), I still have it and it features in one of the forthcoming videos for the EP. However my main guitar is a Martin 000–16 its about 16 years old and I’ve had it for about half that time. I’ve had many guitars but this one is a gem.
Can you tell us who and what is inspiring you to create at the moment?
Since childhood film has always been the inspiration for the art, old b/w movies… film noir. Its easy to see the influence I think, everything I create in scraperboard, my main medium, is lit and composed as if it were a shot in a movie. So whatever I watch still influences what I draw, so ‘The Revenant’, which I didn’t really like so much when I saw it in the cinema, but the landscapes really stuck with me….as did the music.
Musically influences are diverse but for this project electronica artists like Nils Frahm, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music for The Revenant, Bill Frisell, Iron & Wine, Limerick composer/producer Paddy Mulcahy…Bon Iver. “Hiding” is colored by Laura Marling’s excellent ‘Song for our Daughter’ album, also Glen Hansard’s experimentations on his most recent album… and of course work from my collaborators God Is An Astronaut, Jo Quail and Snow Ghosts.
What’s next on the cards for David Rooney?
I’m working with a history channel at the moment doing some soon to be released animations on ‘The Plague’ and ‘Christianity’… more dark material. And then depending on the reaction to the EP, we’ll record more songs, instrumentals or continue I suspect exploring both. It’s been a fascinating journey, I’m excited about continuing on it, I feel the path is now more clearly laid out with the music now more in harmony with the art.
Hear all tracks from the album here: Echotal (bandcamp.com)
