Our Krypton Son’s ethereal sounds may seem bathed in “the glow that flashes red” from the sun of Superman’s home planet, but we don’t really need to look as far as the celestial bodies. Those auroras closer to home should take just as much responsibility for where Chris McConaghy’s melodies emanate from, piercing every so often through the coastal skies to inspire and ignite. Written in the small village of Creeslough in northwest Donegal, the sonic themes of Fleas and Diamonds swell and meander like the landscape of the county that birthed it; impenetrable yet so welcoming once breached, a…
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Set to release the video for his single ‘Relics’ on Monday (which you can preview below) Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son returns with a Kafkaesque tale for the latest installment of his Thin Air column. One morning I awoke to find I’d transformed into a gigantic animated turtle. I lay in bed, upended on my flat, brown coloured shell – which was two-dimensional and, having presumably been drawn by some celestial cartoonist (one clearly on a budget), lacking in any detail whatsoever. I stared terrified at the ceiling, unable to turn my body over. I immediately…
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Off the back of the release of his stunning ‘Can’t Make You Come Back’ (not to mention a sublime cover of Willie Nelon’s ‘Pretty Paper’) Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son has unveiled a live video of a sublime new track, ‘I See A Sadness’. Filmed in Smalltown America’s studio in Derry, the video – edited by Paul Brown and his team from In Your Steps – is, according to the STA blog on the video, “delicate in every sense of the word and is sure to pull on the heart strings and bring a tear to a…
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In the second installment of Revisited – a feature looking back at some of the finest Irish album and EP releases of the last few years – we return to the spectacular self-titled debut album by Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son. Released via Smalltown America Records in 2012, the album is an eleven-track masterstroke of supremely wistful songwriting veering between internalised romantic afterthoughts, extroverted folk-rock forays and some of the finest lyricism and compositional work from a songwriter to ever hail from these parts. A self-proclaimed album about “memory, time, love, death, work, jealousy – the usual shit…
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In the first of a new feature, we implore Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son to take us through ten songs that irrevocably formed his not only his taste in music, but also his approach as a songwriter himself. Bowie, Cave, the Floyd – below is an aural insight into one of the finest music-making minds in the country. The Beatles – ‘There’s A Place’ “An underrated belter from their debut. Introspection in a pop song in 1962? Why, yes.” Rush – ‘Tom Sawyer’ “Legends. The song that made the 13 year old me want to be…