SUPER SUGAR POP!

You could accuse them of playing hard to get, but the elusive Cane 141 aren't being coy: it's just a matter of knowing where to look for them. They haven't been in the papers, nor are they to be found in the eye of the latest hype-cyclone to strike the nation; instead, since their quiet naissance in Galway in 1993, they've played a few very special gigs, released two exquisite albums full of gentle, intelligent, summer-warm analogue synth-pop, and been lauded from the mountaintops round Europe by everyone from cult DJ Bernard Lenoir (France's answer to Steve Lamacq) to the more usual suspects at the BBC, the NME and Uncut.

"Uncut actually reviewed both of our albums, not just [recent second album] Garden Tiger Moth,' says lead singer Michael Smalle, a thoughtful, self-effacing bloke who, as we soon learn, is expansively well-read and entertainingly cinema-savvy to boot. Charmingly, he hasn't a bit of the arrogance that frequently accompanies such extreme and artsy knowledgeability... or perhaps we speak too soon.

"It's funny, Uncut gave the first album a three out of five," says Michael. "Which we thought was ok, for the first record. But we thought the new record could have gotten a four. So we're a bit miffed." Then he laughs. "Nah, we're not really."

Readers may remember Witnnessing them last August at Fairyhouse (a seven-strong orchestra-obscura of melodica, trumpet, brushed snare and a virtual market-stall of vintage analogue equipment), spooling out sweet bookish pop songs - intelligent, guileless and gentle - while drowsing celestial space-synth noises fizzed dreamily round them. Sonically, their affection for old keyboards and shiny-new melody puts one in mind of Pram or Broadcast - but there is also a hopefulness, a yearning, within these tunes that, oddly, conjures that old familiar Blue Nile sensation: of watching the city sky darken and the night unfurl before you like a glittering canopy, full of magic and promise and the sweet possibility of crossing paths with your beloved. And then there is Michael's voice, hanging brightly above, his delivery as sweet and matter-of-fact as the phrase 'I love you', sung at a hushed, singing-to-yourself volume.

But never mind: apparently the French and the Spanish know all this already. This month sees the band heading to Paris for their French live debut. When I ask him where exactly they'll be playing, Michael is pleasingly unimpressed by his own rather glamourous itinerary.

"Um. Somewhere in Paris," he says. "We just did some shows in London and the guys promoting the gigs came over, and now it looks like we're doing a show for Paddy's weekend, in Paris. And we're doing a tour there in May - the first or second week in May - and then we're doing a tour of Spain. I think we'll be doing some festivals, as well, I'm not sure what the festival scene is like in France. There's some festivals lined up for summer, anyway."

Smalle's disregard for music-industry detail doesn't mean Cane 141 aren't ambitious: in case they weren't accomplished enough as musicians, their video for 'Real Spacemen Never Walk Anywhere' has been featured at the Darklight Film Festival. The band - avid cineastes to a man - shot it in those well-known twin meccas of filmmaking, Paris and, eh, Clare.

"Totally accidental," explains Michael. "We're always carrying around a Super 8 camera, and just kind of building up stuff, you know, that's kinda how it happens. Our early videos were never really directed, they were sort of just ... bits of all the stuff we'd gathered over a year or two or whatever.

"All of us possess Super 8 cameras and we are absolutely involved with the visual side of things. I mean, even when we play live, we try to do projections and stuff behind us. It's definitely an important element for us."

For some, conducting an international music career from the remote reaches of the west coast would be considered a handicap, if perhaps a picturesque, easily romanticised one.

"Being based in Galway kind of means that we're untouched by a lot of stuff that's going on,' says Michael. 'We're not really bang in the centre of any sort of major movement, ever. So that can be good I suppose, and bad in a sense I suppose. We don't really play there much..."

Do you not play your hometown much? That's surprising.

"Well - no, we don't, really. I mean, we..." He thinks. "We don't really play Ireland that much, I guess. We don't really play shows that much, you know, generally."

Why? Do you consider yourselves more of a studio band?

"Not really," Michael considers. "I guess we have been, but... I guess we're at the stage now where we don't have to be: you know, we can take it on the road, and really burn it up for a while. Which would be great. And it looks like we're actually going to be doing that this summer, so..." He shrugs, smiling.

Roll on the warm weather.

Garden Tiger Moth is available now on Secret Records