Happy days! The bad boys are back. Paddy Hanna has announced details of his third solo album ‘The Hill’ out September 25th via Strange Brew Records. The auld dandy himself is joined by the crack team of Girl Band’s Adam Faulkner and Daniel Fox on drums & double bass, Daniel Fitzpatrick (Badhands, The Mighty Stef) on guitar & keys and Jill Redmond on vocals.

“We lost ourselves on the Hill, Daniel, Daniel, Adam and I. a seemingly endless spell of isolation spent banging sheet metal, rusted hubcaps and blistering our fingers through non stop recording,” explains Hanna of the record.

“The Hill is an internal musical about how the past and the present exist at the same time in our minds. It deals with the struggles of mental health, the sometimes difficult search for happiness and the moral conflict of growing up in Catholic Ireland. 

As a listener I want you to take a seat inside my head, to smell the west cork air, to feel the gravel under your feet. In order to get this we set up ambient mics outside our makeshift studio to capture the natural landscape, we wandered boatyards and an abandoned train station recording old bits of metal we would clang, to give the album a sense of place. Sonically we also wanted to step away from the String sections used on Leafy Stiletto, opting instead to create melodies and tones using vocals and synthesisers. 

Most importantly however, I just wanted to put the past behind me on this record, I wanted to leave it on the hill. I hope you enjoy my therapy”. 

‘The Hill’ is preceded by lead single Cannibals which is released is Friday and finds Paddy Hanna just where we like him in eccentric fettle.

“Cannibals is a maze of conflicted thought, it asks the question, are we decent people or demons in cheap wigs?” explains Hanna of the track which drips with Fat White Family-esque swagger. “The track mixes organic with inorganic sounds to create that conflict, acoustic instruments blend with found drum sounds while woozy synthesisers create an uncertain haze. The end-result, I hope, is something resembling Ennio Morricone by way of Late period Tom Waits, but I’ll let you draw your own conclusions”.

‘The Hill’ was produced by Daniel Fox with artwork by Jill Redmond.

Hanna’s third album will be released via Strange Brew. Pre-order here

01 “The Last Of Their Kind”
02 “Cannibals”
03 “A Strange Request”
04 “Nameless”
05 “My Ladybird”
06 “Sinatra”
07 “Howling At The Duke Of York”
08 “My Wise Addiction”
09 “The Hill”
10 “Jog On Shall We”
11 “Colosseum”