Cover of 'Bright Star'

My friend Fia Rua released his new album ‘Behind The Grey’, a lovely personal and intimate album. I’m really enjoying the record, it has a lot of humour and warmth. The standout for me personally is his recording of my song ‘Bright Star’ which I originally wrote for ‘In Movement. It’s so moving to have someone cover a song you wrote. I think Eoghan does a great job of bringing out the sentiment in the song, reminds me almost of a Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash. Guitar, vocal and a sprinkling of harmonica - it doesn’t get much more sparse than this and the lyrics stand up very well.

Thanks to Eoghan for this lovely rendition and be sure to check out his album ‘Behind the Grey’.

Fia Rua County Kildare, Ireland Fia Rua is an Irish alt-folk artist under the Urchin Collective label who has just released his 4th album "Behind The Grey". He will be gigging in Ireland and Europe.

Green Sleeves | In Movement

Recently I was at an exhibition of Irish records in The National Print Museum as the sleeve for In Movement was being exhibited there alongside lots of  albums ranging from the 1950s up to the present day. It's safe to say there've been many dodgy album covers. Also, there've been lots of quite strange looking people on album covers. I was honoured to be included. 

In Movement is an album design I'm proud of and kudos must be given to Stephen Kiernan (a talented drummer and graphic designer) for bringing it to life. We did a creative shoot for the cover with Kieran O'Donoghue, whom I'd met via the Life's No Picnic On the Streets project I had worked on with Depaul Ireland. Kieran also allowed us to use some of his very fine photography from an exhibition he had based around Chernobyl and the vacated areas there. Truly powerful work.

As we wandered around the exhibition I felt the whispering of Yeatsian ghosts; 'What then.?' sang Plato's ghost. 'What then?' I know how much labour and effort can go into a record. And here was but a small portion of releases. Phantoms of yesterday. Forgotten, mostly. 'Look upon my works ye mighty and despair'. Bit of that. But how could it be any other way? 

I often get people asking about this cover. There's a trick there. Can you work it out?