Having just released his masterful new single ‘Joyful, Joyful,’ Derry artist Caolán Austin reflects on some of his all-time favourite music, from Bill Evans and DJ Shadow, to Pinback, Steve Reich and beyond.
Vegyn – The Path Less Travelled
Vegyn, in my estimation, is one of the most exciting producers around at the moment. An audible descendant from Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and all of that glitchy good stuff; he makes beautiful electronic music that captures this really raw and beautiful feeling. My good friend Stephen McCauley introduced me to this song and I’ve been obsessed with Vegyn’s entire musical output ever since – there’s rarely a week goes by where I don’t listen to this track and fall in love with it all over again.
Radiohead – Kid A
This record was my entry point into Radiohead’s discography. I adore the whole album but in particular, the first two tracks are gold – my favourite thing they’ve ever done. Back in the days of Limewire and general internet song-thievery, my older sister had downloaded this album onto our family computer along with a bunch of amazing stuff I’d never come across; Air, RJD2, Four Tet, Mos Def… the list goes on. Like all good younger brothers, I stole all of that music for myself, put it on my 512MB mp3 player and would listen to all of these new discoveries on the way to and from school through my shit JVC Gumy earphones. I distinctly remember sitting in Art class at the age of 15, sticking on Kid A for the first time and feeling like a whole new dimension had just opened up in my brain.
Bill Evans – Skating In Central Park
A beautiful jazz record from start to finish. This track in particular is very special; it was the first Bill Evans track I had come across and it was just after I had started taking piano lessons so it got me really inspired to learn more. The way he can use chord progressions to translate emotion and tell a story is incredible – he’s a totally distinctive voice and a genius when it comes to using harmony to make something that is innately human & beautiful.
Gui Boratto – Mr Decay
One of the first records that got me into electronic music in a big way. This was around late-2007/early 2008 and my older brother would come home from uni for the holidays with all this music he was hearing in clubs in Scotland. He’d gotten a free trial of Traktor and we’d spend hours mixing this into Hot Chip’s Ready For The Floor and Booka Shade – Darko (Tiefschwarz remix). It gave me a real appreciation for minimal techno and other artists that were releasing on Kompakt – Laurent Garnier, Superpitcher, John Tejade, Kolsch etc. When I was finally old enough to go to clubs and raves, that was the kind of stuff I was seeking out. Celtronic Festival in Derry was a huge influence in bringing that type of music to Derry and being able to contextualise it in the real world; being able to see these world-class producers & DJs in these tiny venues on our collective doorstep was nothing short of incredible.
DJ Shadow – Building Steam From A Grain Of Salt
What is there to say about this album that hasn’t already been said? It’s powerful, it’s emotive, it’s muscular, it’s melancholic, It’s expansive, it’s total escapism – like a whole other world lives within the grooves of this record. Hip-hop has always been a huge influence for me. Aside from the incredible sampling & musical archive that this album is built on, it’s also a total masterclass in rhythm. There’s a drum break in this particular track, around 2 mins 45 secs in, that I had learnt on drums as a teenager and would play it to death all the time. I tortured my neighbours while I learnt how to get my feet to move as fast as DJ Shadow’s hands on his Akai MPC60.
Another fun fact around this record is that Limerick photographic & hip-hop legend, Brian Cross (B+) shot the cover photo. I didn’t find this out until years later and was thrilled to discover this weird Irish link to this album. I later got in touch with him, sent him some tracks and he was incredibly encouraging & even helped me get some of my first radio plays. The fact that this link exists makes this record even more special to me. Shoutout to B+, he’s an absolute legend.
Andy Shauf – The Magician
This record has the potential to be the ‘perfect’ album – 10 songs, under 40 minutes, beautiful songwriting, beautifully engineered and so distinctive. My pal Martin Johnston sent me this track when we swapped some music recommendations. It was really late one night when I was working in Smalltown America Studio; I had taken a break from mixing a record, put this on and as it came through the speakers I was immediately dumbfounded at how incredible it sounded. I kept it on repeat for what felt like hours. This massive, technicolour mix that sounded immensely huge despite how quiet every instrument was played. It’s a masterclass in control & restraint in music. It also got me back into playing Clarinet which was the first instrument I ever played. I gave up when I was 18 once I left school, but Andy Shauf made it seem so cool to me that I had to buy one and start playing again.
||||||||||||||| (barcode) – Being Left Undone
I know very little about barcode other than they’re an artist from Germany. I just love everything they do – all of their artwork for every release is a plain coloured square – nothing else. I love the anonymity and mystique of it and the fact that this model of being an artist is just so functional; make the music, churn it out, say very little and let your work do the talking. It’s the antithesis of what almost every other artist is doing at the moment. This track has everything I really enjoy – weird, glitchy, complex rhythms, some found sound, beautiful & soulful chords that tug at the heartstrings.
Pinback – Loro
I found this album back in 2020 and I was totally blown away. I think it’s a really powerful thing when a song can make you feel like ‘you’ – that there’s something in the song or the production or the vibe of it that connects on a cellular level – it reminds you of who you are. That’s one of those songs for me. It’s a stunning album from start to finish – kinda lo-fi, totally DIY, a bit weird, really honest-sounding & just really fucking cool.
At The Drive In – Arcarsenal
It would be remiss of me not to mention At The Drive In for this article – the best band on the planet. This album was a life-changer – the chaos, the intensity, the melodies, the energy, the mad-as-fuck lyrics. Probably my favourite record of all time.
Steve Reich – New York Counterpoint
When I was 13, my music teacher at secondary school played this for the class. I remember him putting this on pretty loud through these huge speakers at the front of the classroom, playing the opening few bars and asking us, ‘What instrument do you think this is?’. The entire class thought it was a synthesizer or a keyboard. I had been playing clarinet for 5 years at this stage and still had no idea that it was just 11 clarinets playing together. It completely blew my mind and the limitations of any instrument as I knew them were completely changed. After that, I began to think about music in an entirely different way – everything I’d begun to learn through studying classical music was then taken and applied to guitars, bass, drums etc. That idea of rhythm, texture, harmony and melody and how they all link is something I still think about daily when I’m working on any music. The experience of hearing this absolutely changed my life.
