Seamus Fogarty releases his new album, A Bag Of Eyes, Fogarty’s third album and a wholly different sonic prospect to 2017’s much-lauded The Curious Hand. Weary of the guitar, and seeking something darker than its predecessor, he chose to lean more heavily on synths and drum machines and, additionally, to self-produce.
On A Bag Of Eyes, there is industrial judder, slacker-fuzz guitar, a cacophony of saxophones. On one track, ring-modulated drums kick in with oscillating fury. Another moves from 90s shit-hole grunge venue to sleazy jazz joint in four minutes. Whilst on a third a synth is deployed, with the express purpose of sawing the listener’s ears in half, Fogarty attests. However, beneath them all lie fragments of melody, image, drone; a flicker of banjo, an electronic pulse. Fogarty’s celebrated storytelling is at home in this new sound world, rambling between the fantastical and the mundane: nuns playing volleyball, horses on clifftops, lives glimpsed through rear windows. There are echoes of his own past, the loss of dear friends. Ireland, London and two views of San Francisco, 15 years apart. It is bus stops, house fires and Jimmy Stewart.
Released: November 2020
Cat: WIGLP477
Label: Domino
Listen
Tracklist
1. Shapes
2. Old Suit
3. Jimmy Stewart
4. Wake Up Felix
5. Bus Shelter Blues
6. Nuns
7. Ghosts
8. Horse
9. Interlude
10. Johnny K
11. San Francisco
12. My Boy Willie