New album with Norwegian trailblazers Eivind Aarset (guitars) and live sampling pioneer Jan Bang.
April 2018 sees the release of Seán Mac Erlaine’s third album on the Ergodos label. Following the critical acclaim of his first two solo records Seán is working with two of the leading lights in contemporary music, broadening his soundworld and embracing a collaborative approach. Norwegian musicians Eivind Aarset on guitars and effects, and live sampling pioneer Jan Bang bring an expansive, detailed palette to this work recorded in Oslo.
Second album now available on Vinyl, CD, digital formats
Live dates announced at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh; Another Love Story; Sounds From A Safe Harbour; National Sawdust, New York City; Klaverfabrikken, Denmark; Templebar Trad Fest.
"This is music that effortlessly spans the worlds of traditional, contemporary, jazz and electronica, drawing listeners into its soundscape with a welcoming embrace. And even when This Is How We Fly veer into deep musical space, they lure the listener with them – at times by stealth, but never under duress." ★★★★ - The Irish Times
Cairde Festival Sligo | July 14th & 15th
A magical, site-specific experiential evening of new and improvised music featuring Phil Minton, Jennifer Walshe, Shane Latimer, Seán Mac Erlaine and Claudia Schwab. The Sligo event took place in ‘Breda Murphy’s House’, No. 2 John Street. Audiences are led from one room to another to experience a series of quiet improvisations, explosive sets and moments of magic.
New releases as part of a gathering of over 100 musicians and readers from 15 different countries to set James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to music. Seán Mac Erlaine: composition, producer, and bass clarinet; Dorothy Murphy: vocals, leader; Sue Rynhart: vocals; Georgia Cusack: vocals; Tuula Voutilainen: vocals.
A rare opportunity to see arguably the most important Asian film from the silent era. The presentation will be accompanied by a new score produced by acclaimed Irish musicians and composers Matthew Nolan and Seán Mac Erlaine in collaboration with London based shakuhachi master, Clive Bell. A Page of Madness (1926) or Kurutta Ippeiji is a silent film by Japanese film director Kinugasa Teinosuke. It was lost for fifty years until being rediscovered in a shed in 1971. Teinosuke Kinugasa was the first director in Japan to realise his ambition of treating cinema as a distinct art form in its own right, divorced from the commercial concerns of the new mass-audience medium.
InfoNew commission in association with Improvised Music Company for Spike Dublin Alternative Cello Festival. Chair upon Wood upon Stone is a piece for cellist Kate Ellis and live electronics.
The series concludes with Jan Bang. The musical spheres Jan Bang works in revolve around such luminaries as Jon Hassell, David Sylvian, Brian Eno, Sidsel Endresen, Nils Petter Molvær and Arve Henriksen. From his work as successful pop producer in the 1990s, his creative thrust and pioneering work in developing the concept of live remix - improvising with electronics alongside more conventional instruments and performers - has led to him being constantly in-demand as a producer and performer today.
InfoThis is How we Fly's last tour before recording our new album begins Wednesday in Carrick at The Dock Arts Centre. Don't miss our shows in Clonakilty, Cork City, Ballincollig, Dun Laoghaire, Belfast, Montbeliard, Derry, and Navan. Thanks to Craig Carry of Fractured Air for this beautiful poster!
InfoMajor new commission setting poetry of Yeats for 10 piece Estonian new music Ensemble Avarus. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, a group of Estonian artists have decided to center their creative efforts around Irish culture this year. Over the time of the project, Irish, Colombian, and Finnish artists have joined up. Their work has produced seven new pieces of music so far, as well as a short film of music and dance by director Carlos Lesmes.
InformationDracula Live presents the iconic version of Bram Stoker’s classic tale, screened with a new score written and performed live by Seán Mac Erlaine (Ire), Matthew Nolan (Ire), Eivind Aarset (Nor) and Sharon Phelan (Ire). In this 1931 original, Bela Lugosi stars as the screen’s most enduring vampire Count Dracula, with horror specialist Director Tod Browning creating the film’s eerie and chilling mood.
InfoA hypnotic film portrait of Man U legend George Best accompanied by a live musical score by Sean Mac Erlaine (woodwinds, electronics), Kevin Murphy (cello), Matthew Nolan (guitar, electronics), David Stalling (live electronics), and Bryan O’Connell (drums).
The Guardian previewValgeir is the founder of Greenhouse Studios, Iceland’s top recording facility established in 1997, where in addition to Björk, he has collaborated with artists such as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Feist, Damon Albarn, Camille, CocoRosie, Ben Frost, Sam Amidon, múm, Hilary Hahn & Hauschka, Brian Eno, Sigur Rós and many others.
InfoAs part of the Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival This is How we Fly will perform their largest Dublin concert to date at the Spiegeltent, Merrion Square. The group will take to the beautiful Speigeltent stage for their last Dublin city performance before they record the follow-up to their acclaimed debut album.
InfoBLEED animates an abandoned Georgian house, creating a reverberating, pulsing space. The audience is led from room to room each occupied by a musician, guided by light design which highlights the patina and atmosphere of the house. A live collaborative tape piece is used, a technique of recording each performance and replaying that recording throughout the house as the next performance is occurring. With ten performances this creates an increasingly rich, layered ambiance where past decisions inform subsequent ones, with each musician adding to the composition over five days turning the entire four storey house into a huge instrument.
Barry Guy (double bass)
Shane Latimer (guitars, electronics)
Laura Hyland (guitar, voice)
Seán Mac Erlaine (woodwinds, electronics)
Justin Carroll (keyboards)
Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola)
Roy Carroll (sound design)
Tobias Delius (tenor saxophone)
Steve Davis (drum kit)
Gavin Prior (guitars, electronics).
These two musicians started collaborating in 2007, a musical relationship which was made formal when their contemporary folk group This is How we Fly was established in 2010. That group has gone on to perform for audiences all around Europe and North America where silence, gesture and improvisation informs their music.
InfoPerforming Pauline Oliveros’ The Mystery Beyond Matter and Jennifer Walshe’s Dordán in the new UK festival, Deep Minimalism, run by South Bank Centre. In the central slot of the 3-day event, 8 pm on June 25th, the performance will take place in one of London’s most prestigious venues, St. John’s Smiths Square. In the company of Oliveros and Walshe themselves, QME will join musicians and composers from all over the world in a celebration of “music that takes its time”.
InfoRTÉ lyric fm has commissioned is this on?, a new work for radio from renowned Irish composer Karen Power to mark the place of Ireland's first radio broadcast and to pay tribute to the profoundly significant contributions by women to Ireland’s turbulent history in the early twentieth century. It will be performed by Karen in concert along with works by Yoko Ono, John Godfrey and Cat Lamb played by the Quiet Music Ensemble, and broadcast live from on RTÉ lyric fm. Presented by Cork Midsummer Festival 2016.
InfoA cycle of unique dialogues between one of Ireland’s most innovative and progressive musicians with similarly minded musicians from the European contemporary music scene. Norwegian folk singer Unni 'Løvlid’s voice is pure and direct, completely at ease with all the changing moods.' - Fiona Talkington / BBC.
TicketsA cycle of unique dialogues between one of Ireland’s most innovative and progressive musicians with similarly minded musicians from the European contemporary music scene. Seán’s guests in the first installment of the series will be the Norwegian guitarist and composer Eivind Aarset on April 22nd, and the Norwegian folk singer Unni Løvlid on May 27th.
TicketsApril 9th 2016. Archival silent film from Dublin with improvised scores performed by six leading musicians working between the fields of Irish traditional, improvised and electronic music. The event will feature music by Seán Mac Erlaine (woodwind/electronics), Seán Carpio (percussion/guitar/loops), Jack McMahon (turntables), Eoghan Neff (fiddle) and Shane Latimer (guitar/electronics).
DetailsMarch 15th. Our Polish debut! Performing work by David Toop, Martin Iddon, Maciej Jabłoński, John Godfrey and Jennifer Walshe.
InfoPrepare to be utterly entranced as five of Ireland’s finest contemporary musicians celebrate the undying power of song, the most constant of musical forms. The ensemble segues seamlessly from medieval hymns and Baroque arias to 70s folk-rock and contemporary pop, one beguiling meditation on love, longing and loss melting into the next. Presented by Music Network.
InfoThis Dublin performance will feature a screening of his short film Sysiphus Runs as well as short films documenting the making of his new 13 CD Box set Cusp of Oblivion. Hayden will also give a solo performance with Saxophone and Sruti Box as well as a performance of the piece Finn Again Wakes using texts from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. As a special guest Seán Mac Erlaine will join Hayden on bass clarinet and electronics. Presented by Bottlenote in association with Note Productions.
InfoMy 2015 working year ends with a week creating new music for master storytellers Macnas and this giant. Happy new year!
A must-see weekend of events at Triskel in Cork celebrating the German record label ECM. On Saturday, 28 November, Ergodos founders Garrett Sholdice and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly are joined by Michelle O’Rourke (voice), Seán Mac Erlaine (bass clarinet) and Linda Buckley (voice/electronics) in a performance in the Triskel Project Space.
InfoAhead of a number of performances at Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival curated by Bryce Dessner. Tracks from Vinicio Capossela, Jon Balke, Bob Dylan, Romica Puceanu, Paul Burch and others. "These are musicians I feel I can trust, to lean on, to deliver the goods when you might need them. I hope some other listeners find some of the same things here as I do."
- Seán Mac Erlaine, September 2015.
A site-specific promenade of improvised music in the atmospheric surrounds of a gloriously dilapidated Georgian residence. The audience, led from room to room experiences quiet improvisations, explosive sets and moments of magic from leading improvising musicians.
A leading figure of European improvised music and film scores, Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger (Werner Herzog, Winter & Winter) is joined by acclaimed Irish musicians including Seán Carpio (guitar, electronics), Shane Latimer (guitars, electronics), Seán Mac Erlaine (clarinets, processing), and Justin Carroll (keyboards). Prebooking only.
The Iraqi landscape as seen through 1950s surveillance footage from the CIA. Repurposed and reedited for a track from Seán's second solo record 'A Slender Song'.
About the music...A new site-specific setting of Finnegans Wake, scored for improvising choir, woodwinds, electronics and film and presented as a theatre-style promenade piece, audiences are led through an abandoned Georgian residence in a heightened environment conjuring the world and epoch of Joyce’s Dublin.
More...Princeton University: residency and performance. Wesleyan University and three night SOLD OUT residency in Manhattan's Irish Arts Center. Plus very special guests Cleek Schrey, Brittany Haas, and Maeve Gilchrist.
"Even if you're not an Irish-music nut, there's a good chance you'll be charmed and even dazzled by this jazz-tinged stylishly modernized quartet of fiddle, clarinet, drums and, best of all, percussive dance." - Time Out, New York.
"The rushes by the grey nuns’ pond: ah eh oh let me sigh too." New work for clarinet, string quartet, chalumeau and live electronics based on Joyce's Finnegans Wake with Ireland's leading string quartet.
Full info / Book Tickets“I started playing live solo shows around 2006/2007 but in 2010 my approach and tools changed fairly radically as I packed up my dozens of hardware pedals and acres of cables (it just got too heavy for the bicycle!) and started developing and using customised software and a computer alongside my woodwinds.”
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Limited edition pressing on orange vinyl released by Ergodos Records. The end of year polls are saying: "An utterly original sonic space. ★★★★" ~ The Irish Times. Donal Dineen's Top three releases of 2014. Sixth on Nialler9's top 25 Irish albums of 2014. Now available in Tower Records, Dublin; Plugd Records, Cork; Harold Moores Records, London and online from Ergodos
More InformationA sonic journey into the thoughts and poetic imagination of the late West Limerick poet Michael Hartnett. Directed and researched by Dylan Tighe. Original music and sound design by Seán Mac Erlaine. Featuring the actor Andrew Bennett and singers Nell Ní Chróinín and Iarla Ó Lionáird.
Listen Back / Free DownloadCommissioned by Quiet Music Ensemble with funds made available by the Arts Council of Ireland, The Mystery Beyond Matter is a major new work from one of the world’s most influential composers and performers, an independent and pioneering spirit who has been at the cutting edge of musical and technical innovation for many decades. The composition is for improvising musicians and sound engineer, live electronics, multi channel audio and unusual venues including radio and internet.
Traditional Irish. Arrangement, clarinets, electronics by Seán Mac Erlaine. Camera work & film by Donal Dineen. Available from Ergodos Records on vinyl, CD and digital formats - www.longafterthemusicisgone.com