MacD on Music: Sky's the limit!

Weekends in Derry are always good for a few gigs (see: Halloween weekend, when I went to three in four days, seeing seven bands).

This past weekend was no exception. As anyone who read this column last week will know, Bennigan’s played host to Dublin group Sky Atlas this past Friday.

The group, called “the next big thing on the Irish music scene” by Hot Press, are made up of Louis Young on violin/keyboards, Ryan McClelland on drums, Danilo Ward on bass and Lughaidh Armstrong-Mayock on lead vocals and guitar.

Their current tour is, they tell me, “our first headline tour of Ireland and we are running everything independently. We released our debut EP ‘Stone’ last winter, and have a new single ‘Hollow Embrace’ coming out November 18th to coincide with the tour.”

How did you first come together as a group?

We all met at music college in BIMM Dublin! We had been playing together in various other projects and classes in college, and pretty quickly found that we played well together as a band. Since then our sound has changed pretty drastically, and we’re finally at a place now where we’re really happy with and excited about the music we’re writing.

Who would you say have been your biggest musical influences?

We draw from lots of different sources as a band, having come from a variety of musical backgrounds. Lughaidh’s mum plays with the trad-dance band Kíla, and we definitely have a Celtic, folky element in our sound – we find ourselves listening to the likes of Half Moon Run and Nick Drake for inspiration when writing.

Derry artist Gemma Doherty touring with U2 frontman

We’re also all big on rockier, more shoegazey bands such as Yo La Tengo, which makes for an interesting combination of those two worlds. More recently we’ve been leaning into more electronic elements and an approach akin to some of the late Radiohead stuff, which is something we’re really enjoying.

What have been some career highlights to date?

We’ve been really lucky to play some great shows since we started as a band. Playing electric Picnic this year was a dream, and we’ve had some really fun shows in Dublin, especially when we launched our debut EP ‘Stone’ last year. We’re in the middle of our first ever tour at the moment, and having organised it all ourselves we’re really enjoying getting to play in new places to new audiences, and meeting lovely folks along the way.  

Is this your first time playing Derry? Are you looking forward to it?

We’ve never played in Derry! We’re really looking forward to it, we can’t wait to play to new people and just enjoy being up this end of the country.

Our drummer Ryan actually went to school in Magherafelt in South Derry, so it’ll be a nice chance to play for some of his old friends. We’re also super excited to hear Dander who are supporting on the night, the music we’ve heard from them is really great and we can’t wait to see it live!

There seems to be a great music scene in Derry, and we’re glad we can join it for a night.

Anyone else on the Irish music scene you think we should keep an eye on?

There’s so much talent in Ireland at the moment, we couldn’t even try to get through all the people we admire and are inspired by. We’re very lucky to have some of our favourite artists and close friends joining us on the tour – the likes of Jack Devlin in Belfast and Dublin bands CABL and Big Love are making some really special music and we’re honoured to be able to play with them.

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We’ve also got Segotia and Ria Rua, two fantastic artists who we’re lucky to call our friends. Some other acts we’re really into at the moment are Moon Diver, Skinner, Aoife Nessa Frances and Junior Brother.

Do you have anything coming up you want to talk about?

We’re just about to release new music! Our next single ‘Hollow Embrace’ comes out on the 18th of November – we’ve never been as proud of a piece of music as we are of this one, and we can’t wait for it to be in the world for all the lovely people to hear.

And that’s it for another week. Sky Atlas can be found on Instagram @sky_atlas_band. Their new single ‘Hollow Embrace’ is out on Friday.