MUSIC WAS very much part of the household that I was brought up in. My father is one of these irritating people who is in really good humour in the morning and sings all the time, laughs L. Singing was always a major form of expression for me. I wouldn t talk about personal things to people but I would always sing. It s a great way of cheering yourself up. Music has always been a major part of my life. I can t imagine an existence without it.
Singing is definitely something that comes naturally to L. Her latest album, Fire In A Dream Cage, has enough studio effects and loops to keep a host of DJs in business, but it still all come back to the power of the human voice.
However, it was only in the last few years that she started to sing professionally, thanks to the enigmatic Stano.
He wrote two songs and we decided to record them for devilment, she recalls. It just went on and on and eventually turned into the first album. We didn t plan it it just sort of happened like that. We developed a style of working together and it s great.
The duo s practices are not exactly orthodox. We don t have a band who all sit and play together and then go in to record, she explains. We come up with an idea for a song and go into the studio and put down the basic notion, for instance a vocal melody. Then we start to work on that and build instruments around it so we create the song in the studio.
While she has a huge input into the music on the album, L leaves the lyric writing to Stano and co-writer Paul Tiernan.
I love their words they write really strange, unusual and beautiful songs, she enthuses. And I m not into straight story songs. I never really was. I like songs that make you feel a particular way and you re not sure why there s a whole mood or an image captured in them.
huge budget
L s second album, Fire In A Dream Cage, bears out her words. Traditional song structures are definitely not on the agenda. Instead, each song is like immersing yourself in a particular mood or feeling, partly due to the fact that some of the songs contain up to 90 studio tracks all working at the same time, giving a very textured effect.
It is very much an album that, the more you listen to it, the more you get out of it, explains L. It is designed that way. A lot of people have said that the music is very cinematic, very visual, and I think that s what I like about it.
People ask me why my vocal isn t way up front in the mix and, for a start, I ve never liked people who just shout and roar, she adds. It doesn t suit the type of songs I do. I like to keep the vocal back a little bit, because it makes you listen to the backing track more, and we ve put such a lot of effort into creating these very textured, layered backing tracks that it s a bit of a waste if nobody listens to them. You have to listen a bit harder to get into it.
Fire In A Dream Cage has, so far, been available only in Ireland, but plans are in place to release the album further afield. L s substantial web-site, which contains the entire album, has attracted a lot of attention from all over the globe.
The web-site is important to us because it gives us access to the world, really, she says. People, wherever they are, can just tune in and have a listen. Equally, from a marketing point of view, it s important to us that the people in the territories that we re interested in going to can actually pick up and listen to it. It s great for an independent company, because we don t have the huge budget that all the majors have. So the Web has been very important to us.
Fire In A Dream Cage was released through Hue Records, a Dublin independent label, which is something that the singer feels strongly about.
For the sort of music that we want to do, independent is the only way to be, because you have total freedom, she says matter-of-factly. There s no point in someone trying to pressure me into being a particular way, because I just won t do it. There s no enjoyment in it. If I can t do it my way, I just won t do it. There s easier ways to make a living.
Thankfully, L is continuing to do things her own way, and in the process is proving just how important the vision of independent labels is to the music industry. Long may she continue. n

Fire In A Dream Cage is out now on Hue Records.