It’s that magical time of year again; Other Voices Series 13 is on its way and will be building on its well deserved reputation for joining the dots between new and established talent. The TV show and festival introduces music lovers to the most promising newcomers of the year, who play alongside some of the most respected names in the music industry.
The next three acts to be added to the lineup for Other Voices Series 13 are Melanie De Biasio, King Creosote & Ibeyi. They will be joining Wild Beasts, Delorentos, Damien Rice, Young Fathers and All We Are in Dingle.
The Music Trail will be bigger than ever before with thirty acts playing in pubs and venues around Dingle. The first five acts announced to play the trail are A Lazarus Soul, Floor Staff, Marc O’Reilly, Ye Vagabonds and Daithi. Music Trail events are free, unticketed and will take place before and after gigs in the Church. In addition, performances in St. James’ Church will be streamed live into venues around the town.
In other news, BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens will be joining Aidan Gillen to present Other Voices Series 13 and Jim Carroll will welcome Paddy Cosgrave (Web Summit), Annie Atkins (graphic designer on the Grand Budapest Hotel), Paul Galvin (GAA) and Gavin Sheridan (thestory.ie) to Banter in Foxy John’s.
We caught up with Philip King to glean the inside story on how acts are picked for Other Voices and to find out what exactly makes the festival and TV show so popular among musicians and fans alike.
Other Voices is known for shining a spotlight on Irish musicians on the rise – just look at James Vincent McMorrow, Lisa Hannigan, Villagers and Damien Rice, who all performed in St James’ Church in the early days of their careers. So, how exactly are the artists selected for the show?
“There’s a certain randomness to it. Let me think, how would you answer that question… How do we go about picking the acts for Other Voices?
I get a lot of music sent to me all the time over years and years. My life was a musical life. When Other Voices started – 14 years ago now – I was doing a radio program in West Kerry and Glen Hansard came and played some songs. Afterwards we walked on Ventry Beach and we thought wouldn’t it be an interesting thing to bring musicians to play in West Kerry?
One thing led to another. He introduced me to a range of other things and vice versa. Damien Rice – funnily enough – was only beginning at that time. The radio program continued and so did Other Voices. There were some people that we thought “wouldn’t it be very nice to invite them?”, some were from outside Ireland. One thing led to another.
Myself and Aoife Woodlock (Other Voices Music Producer) just talk music all the time. It’s always “have you heard this?” “have you heard that?”. Multiples of hundreds if not thousands of demos and discs arrive to Aoife every year. You sift through everything and listen to everything and see if you can find a balance of music that is the soundtrack to our time. They are the things that inform us really. You try to find music that is current and now and then, would they like to come to Dingle?
The heart of the process of Other Voices is giving a platform to those who are beginning to sing their songs and write their music. If you were to ask me what we do, I think it’s that in a world that is so full of technology and so full of connectivity it’s to offer a human, visceral, tactile contact where musicians play in real time to people in a room.”
The conversation with Philip took place at the Dublin Web Summit. Brand affiliation was the recurring theme at the Music Summit and speakers outlined at length how careful artists must be in ensuring that any potential sponsorship deal adheres to their artist’s core values.
Deals can seem like easy money but the message that is being stressed at the moment is brand affiliation can be detrimental to a career and to an artist’s reputation. Where many in the music industry wade through the murky waters of sponsored Instagram posts and product placement, Other Voices has kept its head afloat and remained true to the values it set sail with fourteen years ago. When asked how they successfully managed to maintain the magic, Philip had the following to say:
“Trust. I think trust is the key thing. I am a musician. I’ve played music all of my life. My relationship is with music, not of a producer to a production. At it’s heart is a love of music. That really is shot through the way in which we go about doing this.
Music has been leveraged over many years – whether it’s music in a movie or in a Levi ad, music in politics or as a marketing tool – but at its heart there is something more fundamental and soulful there. I suppose it’s not to preserve that but when we gather in Dingle, music is the heart of the matter. There are various platforms in which the show appears. Trust is the thing really.”
An annual problem for fans of the show is the issue of not being able to wrangle tickets to the main event in St. James’ Church. Should this be deterrent for fans or is it worth heading down to Dingle anyway?
“The TV representation of it is one thing, but before we get to that there is the business of playing the music. Acts will play in the Church and around the town. There will be a Music Trail. It will be populated by all different kinds of things. There’s a sociability about this thing. Music acts as a binding, bonding agent for people in an emotional sort of a way.
This has been a traumatic, tumultuous year for Ireland. It’s about to enter the decade of centenaries where people start to ask themselves; what is it to be Irish? In Dingle, nine of the Kerry minor team that won the All Ireland go to the local school. All of the people in Walking on Cars for example also went to that school. How many of those people will be in Ireland in five, six or seven years? You constantly hear young people saying “I’m going to have to leave, I have a degree but I can’t find a job, I have to go”.
It’s not that we talk about those things when we gather in Dingle at the end of the year but that business – in an unsaid way – of who we are and what we are arises. Something real, authentic and tangible. If we hang on to that we’ll have something very valuable.”
Something very valuable indeed.
Other Voices takes place from the 12th-14th of December in Dingle. Check othervoices.ie for line up information and ticket competitions.