MacD on Music: Citadels Of The Sun

Throughout history, musicians of different cultures have been coming together to create new and exciting things. Groups like the Chieftains spent decades blending Irish music with sounds from across the globe and this week I’m going to be talking to the man behind a new show that blends the sounds of Ireland and India: Marty Coyle of Citadels of the Sun, who are performing in St. Augustine’s on the 23rd of this month.

I caught up with Marty recently to talk about the project and the show: “We’ve got two guests arriving from Rajasthan, Asin Khan and Sawai Khan, and the project itself is called Citadels of the Sun. It’s a project that’s been in development since 2019.

"It was originally a commission from Earagail Arts Festival for Irish artists to collaborate with artists from Rajasthan. That music was then showcased firstly as part of Earagail Arts Festival then we travelled out to Rajasthan to showcase it.

"Obviously the pandemic happened in the middle of all that but we kept in touch with the artists and wrote more music. We’ve since been back in Rajasthan to showcase the finished show. They’ve been here once already this year. We’ve showcased at Celtic Connections and sold out IMBOLC festival as well this year.”

Speaking of the origins of the project: “Paul Brown, a director from Earagail Arts contacted myself in late 2018 to run the idea past and see if it was viable. He’d already made a trip to India and met the director of Jodhpur Riff, Divya Bhatia, and those two pieced together this idea that they’d like to base some music upon the premise of the two sun forts, Grianan Fort here and Mehrangarh Fort in Rajasthan.

"They wanted us to compose music that would draw a connection between the two forts. It was very daunting to start off with because, firstly, I’d never collaborated with Indian artists before, and how we were going to make the Irish music and instrumentation fit with Indian music. We kind of had to put music aside for a long time and talk about what we had in common culturally. Things like storytelling and what kind of stories were within the music itself and we began to write our own story that we could then base some new music on taking elements of Irish traditional and Rajasthan-y.

"Things like long form playing. Irish music can be very structured. We went inside the tunes and opened them up a bit to allow for the Rajasthan-y artists to play in the more long form, storytelling approach.”

And that’s it from Marty and Citadels of the Sun. The show is happening on August 23rd in St. Augustine’s and features support from the junior traditional platers from Acadamh Ceoil Chaoimhin Ui Dhochartaigh. James and Aiden Logue, Diarmuid Dobbin, Ciaran Colling and Cara, Orlaith and Coaimhe Culiffe, who recently competed in the Ulster Fleadh.

Now, onto other business. August seems to be the month for new releases, with lots of stuff coming from lots of great artists. This week sees the release of Ethan Hollan’s new single ‘Valentine’, which he describes as an exploration of new sounds influenced by the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones and Wolf Alice. The song is out this Friday (16th August) on all good streaming platforms.

Also this Friday, GRIM17 will be releasing a new collaboration with JJ Lovegrove, a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Talk Show Host’. GRIM17 (who’s debut single, as far as I know, can still be found in Cool Discs), describes himself as a “cacophonist and song-n-dance man” with “numerous albums,

singles, collaborations, remixes, mental health problems, substance abuse issue, and out-of-date accolades under his belt” while JJ is an “independent conceptual dark pop artist, mixing haunting vocals, delicately crafted lyrics & dark cinematic vibes”. The single will also be available on all good streaming platforms this Friday, so play Ethan Hollan first, then add GRIM and JJ to your queue for up next.

Finally, SHASMA’s latest single ‘Peacefully Gracefully Wild was released on Friday last week and is the latest in a string of great songs from this band of “three noisy introverts from Derry”. This track is something a bit different from the group, with a “slower tempo, acoustic nature and electric organ” while still carrying their “familiar grittiness and sense of dynamic”. The song is out now, once again, on all good streaming platforms.

And now, after all that, time for the socials. GRIM17 can be found on Instagram @grim17again, JJ Lovegrove @jjlovegrove, Ethan Hollan @ethan_hollan, SHASMA @shasma.music and Citadels of the Sun @citadels_of_the_sun.