If ever there is a sign that a local music scene has arrived, it’s when it gets to soundtrack an indigenous film production. Thus, as the Seattle grunge bands provided the musical backdrop for Cameron Crowe’s gen-x movie, Singles, the great and the good of the Irish music scene are gathered together for Liz Gill’s Dublin based romantic comedy, Goldfish. Well almost. The selection, put together by hotpress’ Tanya Sweeney, plays a little on the safe side but then again it would probably be hard to imagine wildly leftfield mavericks like Warlords of Pez slotting neatly into this kind of environment.
The main selling point is two new tracks from Damian Rice and Lisa Hannigan, the latter venturing out as a solo artist for the first time to a new dominant role. Obviously written to fit in with the film’s main musical theme, they’re nice enough bossa nova tinged pieces but ultimately quite mundane. Indeed, the first 15 minutes or so is a fairly bland affair,the nadir of which is a dreary MOR ballad by Sinéad Lohan. Fortunately, the familiar delicate guitar riff of The Frames’ ‘Lay Me Down’ lifts proceedings and from then on there’s no looking back.
All concerned clearly know their stuff, giving the project an eclectic but still distinctly Dublin feel. The Walls’ two contributions are both fantastic, proving just what an unsung force they still are. Nina Hynes comes over unexpectedly sunny on ‘Shine’, while hi.rise’s ‘Loverush’ is cool and sophisticated. Meanwhile any album that can merge Little Drummer Boy’s trancey gem ‘I Love You’, the classic ‘Bloodrush’ from Messiah J & The Expert and Rodrigo Y Gabriela has got to be worth investigating.
The fact that anyone with half an ear on the local scene won’t find anything new here is largely immaterial. If all goes well audiences around the world will find themselves thrilling to the sounds of NPB and Super Delta Three, which can’t be a bad thing.