AUTRE MONDE + Guests.

about

Dublin experimental rock outfit Autre Monde have announced the release of sophomore album Sensitive Assignments via Popical Island 15th September, accompanied by an IE Tour bringing them to Belfast on Saturday 28 October 2023.

The album, 8 tracks of substance, experimentation, darkness, light and melodic invention was written throughout the pandemic period and recorded with Daniel Fox (Gilla Band) at Sonic Studios in Dublin in 2022. 

This phase of the band’s work is characterised by the strict ‘no prior ideas’ rule that they used to drive the writing process. In short, there are no pre-written songs: all songs emerged from collaborative beginnings in the rehearsal room, focused by a shared vision honed by discussions, making playlists and constantly pulling at threads. In the songs, you might hear echoes of Clinic, Robert Palmer, Michael McDonald, ‘Blue’ Gene Tyranny, Terry Riley, Cabaret Voltaire, 1970s Zamrock cuts, early 2000s hip-hop, Albert Ayler, Can, Devo… maybe even The Beatles at times. And Blur. Mostly you’ll hear a clear progression from The Imaginary Museum, a more coherent, more confident band enjoying making music together.

Subject-matter ranges from admiration for the assassinated former leader of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara (Pity for Upright Man) to a Franciscan protest song (Here Now, Birdie, Birdie) to the existential and practical adaptation to becoming a family man (Road to Domestos) to a theatrical mini-opera concerning the release of a brother from prison (Sensitive Assignment, Parts 1-4) and the Anna Burns-inspired story of the abandonment of a family for a life in competitive dancing (Strictly Come Dancing). 

Autre Monde are Paddy Hanna (vocals, keyboards), Padraig Cooney (bass, synth, vocals), Mark Chester (guitar) and Eoghan O’Brien (drums, keyboards, backing vocals). They met through their involvement together in a network of Dublin bands that at one stage or another were central to the Popical Island collective (Skelocrats, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Ginnels, No Monster Club, Land Lovers, the Paddy Hanna band). 

They quickly gained attention for their early singles and stirring live performances, with The Thin Air insisting they were “one of the very best bands in the country” and listing Village of Loomers at 6th on their Best Irish Tracks of 2017 list. The Irish Times noted that Autre Monde were at that time “mining Television, ESG, Suicide and the The Slits”, and that’s about right.