Food for thought

Think started off as a band in my head,” says Terry McGuinness, speaking in a modest recording studio in Dublin. “The production is in here,” he emphasises, tapping the side of his head. “I wish I had an interface that could go directly from my brain onto tape, y’know? Sometimes it’s hard to match up what’s going on here to what you get down on tape.”

McGuinness is the architect and main talent behind Think, a new Dublin outfit poised for success with the release of their first album Gimme That Sound. The band’s debut is the product of two years’ worth of brainstorming and experimentation with a variety of instruments and studio beats. While the singer/guitarist/pianist gets help from Paul Brennan on drums and Mucker on bass, it is the supreme presence of McGuinness and his musical imagination that makes Think tick.

“I wouldn’t like to think that I’m any particular style,” he says. “Pushing myself creatively, that’s what it’s about. There are musicians and there are artists and I would like to think that I am some sort of an artist that wants to do something new . Like, some people make sandwiches, some people make pizzas and some people make furniture. I make songs – sonic sandwiches. I don’t want to just rehash crap, I want to try and break a little ground.”

The group are setting out to do this armed with an extremely catchy collection of songs made intergalactic in the studio. A spacey aura that permeates an album that pays homage to the classic rock gods of yore and has moments of Beatles and Bowie-like brilliance. But it is McGuinness’s personal charisma that makes it so likeable. Fuelled by his experience playing both ambient and singer/songwriter gigs around Dublin, and a knack for several instruments, his music is anything but boring.

“I never set out to make it sound a certain way,” he explains. “It’s just how it come out. When you start something it kind of leads you along and suggests things to you. I’m trying to capture the melodies that are coming out of me so any spare time I have, I’m sitting there with a guitar and a tape recorder.”

And what does everyone else think of Think?

“I hope they like it,” says McGuinness, mentioning that people from Japan have been logging onto the band’s website to give a listen. “That’s why you would make a record. You do it for yourself in a certain way but if it does it for you then it’s going to do it for other people. I’d buy it, I’d have to say.”