Cork band Boa Morte release their long awaited second album, The Dial Waltz, on Friday May 21st this year. Beautifully recorded in an analogue studio on 2 inch tape by US producer Daniel Presley (Spain, The Breeders) this collection of songs is arguably even more sparse and evocative than their debut which attracted so many plaudits upon its release eight years ago. To say that this is a long-overdue follow-up is an understatement, but fans of the band will not be disappointed. From the opener The Rail Song to the closing moments of All This We Must Consider the album like its predecessor and “like Smog or Will Oldham…..wraps around you and tilts your head to the stars.” (The Irish Times).
Boa Morte started the noughties in good company, signed to a fledgling record label based in North Carolina with labelmates that included Ryan Adams’ Whiskeytown. Their debut album (Soon it will come time to face the world outside) was recorded in Dublin by Daniel Presley. Following a lack of movement Stateside, the band contacted Shoeshine Records boss Francis MacDonald (drummer with Teenage Fanclub) who (on the advice of Norman Blake) agreed to release the album on this side of the Atlantic. The UK and Irish press were struck by the immediacy and intimacy of the music.
“Occasionally a record comes along that’s so intimate and immediate you want to disconnect the phone, get under the duvet and forget the outside world.”
— UNCUT
“By the time you’ve got the full measure of their sombre elegance, the band are confirmed masters of the idiom.”
— MOJO
“Like Smog or Will Oldham or any great purveyors of rural lament, it offers warm solace through the perpetual tumbling of the seasons”.
— IRISH TIMES
“…the band end up with swaying, melancholic gems that are so much more than the sum of their parts”.
— www.drownedinsound.com
www.allmusic.com
One writer for Irish music site cluas.com put Boa Morte’s album in his top 5 Irish albums of all time!
John Peel was a fan and twice played the band on his show just before his untimely death.
Between recordings Boa Morte spent some time touring with Teenage Fanclub, playing gigs in Ireland with the likes of Calexico, Howe Gelb & Adrian Crowley and working on the songs for the new album. Following a more than adequate period of rumination the new songs on The Dial Waltz are now ready to face the outside world. The band promote the release of ‘The Dial Waltz’ with gigs in:
Cork (Crane Lane Theatre, Saturday 1st May)
Galway (Róisín Dubh, Saturday 22nd May)
Dublin (Bewleys Café Theatre, Sunday 23rd May).
