During the height of the pandemic, the music TV show Other Voices hosted a series of concerts from the National Gallery of Ireland when the venue was closed to the public. The singers Lisa Hannigan and Loah were among the line-up, but it was a performance by the Irish-Zambian singer Denise Chaila that had everyone talking. Chaila’s hip-hop came to life against a backdrop of portraits of the 19th-century nationalist Daniel O’Connell and The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife by Daniel Maclise.
Philip King, the 71-year-old founder of Other Voices, was in the gallery for that performance in 2020 and he remembers it as a profound cultural moment. “Here is a woman whose origins are in Africa, who grew up in Limerick, standing and dancing in this room. The iconography was fantastic, as was Denise. In times of isolation the collapsing of distance was remarkable.”
Other Voices is an institution. Since its inception in 2001, the series has provided an early platform for some of Ireland’s biggest contemporary musicians — Hozier, Ye Vagabonds, Lankum and Lisa O’Neill among them — as well as international stars such as the National, St Vincent and Florence + The Machine. Amy Winehouse performed at the show’s spiritual home, St James’ Church in Dingle,
Co Kerry, in 2006, and Sinéad O’Connor was an occasional performer. The ethos of the show, King believes, is entwined with the Irish psyche.
“Other Voices takes a photograph of the musical life of the country as it happens. Across its two decades it has captured the developing musical voice of a country as it went from the turn of the century right up to celebrating 100 years of independence. It is a musical and emotional response to who and what we are.”
A new series kicks off this week and the artists include Kae Tempest, the Murder Capital and Mick Flannery. Conor O’Brien of the indie folk band Villagers, who played Other Voices in the teething stages of his career makes a return. CMAT from Dublin, another guest this year, has seen her profile flourish since playing on the show three years ago (she has been nominated for an award at
the Brits).
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Some artists believe that a mysterious alchemy takes place in the tiny church where it is filmed. The intimacy of the show, King remarks, “has a particular quality right now in a world that is more artificial, virtual and augmented. This is a real, tactile, visceral, sensation of performing in a little room.”
Other Voices, King says, has become an important cog for Ireland’s public service broadcaster. “RTE has been in turmoil for some time, but I believe that in a modern, pluralist, diverse democracy like Ireland, it’s vital to have a properly funded public-service media. It’s vital in defence of democracy and the truth.”
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Ever since he was a boy in Cork, listening to the blues on his father’s transistor radio, King wanted to archive and play music. In 1975, he formed the folk-rock band Scullion — an enduring concern that has recorded nine albums, including the song I Am Stretched on Your Grave, which O’Connor performed on her album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. “It was a great honour to have Sinéad sing a song I had a hand in making. Humbling,” King says.
King branched out from the concert hall to the editing suite to produce documentaries such as Bringing It All Back Home (1987), in which he traced the influence of Irish music in the US. “We left an indelible imprint on the making of the American songbook,” he says.
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In 1994, he made A River of Sound, a seven-part documentary about traditional Irish music and seven years later came the film Freedom Highway: Songs That Shaped a Century. “I remember sitting with Tom Waits for that film and Waits said, ‘Songs are like seeds. The wind takes them and blows them. They land and they represent themselves in some other form.’”
What role does modern Irish folk and trad play? “My own sense is when we hear the band ØXN, who are in the new series of Other Voices, Lankum and Lisa O’Neill, we hear a sonic sounding board of what it is to be alive in 2024. We hear the things that disturb us: encroaching authoritarianism, the climate crisis, not being able to buy a house. A generation of people in postcolonial Ireland is listening to this music because they hear something in it that chimes with their own lives.”
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U2 are arguably Ireland’s biggest musical export and King has worked with Bono’s gang on a number of projects, most notably in 1998 when he directed a documentary about the making of the album The Joshua Tree. Do they get the respect they deserve? “The answer to the question is yes. We criticise them but if somebody from somewhere else gives out about them they will be defended to the hilt. I admire them and their longevity.”
While Irish music impacted the rest of the world for over a century, now migrants to Ireland are broadening our musical spectrum. “Diverse communities — the people who are migrating to Ireland — are enriching every aspect of Irish music, including traditional music,” King says.
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“I’m now living in a modern, pluralist, diverse, independent, democratic republic. The people that are coming here are bringing something of great value to us as a post-colonial society in a post-Catholic Ireland.”
King hopes to play his own part in contributing to that society, across film as well as TV and music. He has produced a feature-length adaptation of the John McGahern novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, which will close the Dublin International Film Festival next month. Other Voices, meanwhile, continues to spread beyond Dingle. The show can now be found at festivals such as Electric Picnic in Co Laois and Latitude in Suffolk, UK, and it pops up at venues across Ireland, the UK and the US. It has also given birth to ancillary events, such as Jim Carroll’s podcast Banter, which has featured the actresses Aisling Bea and Eve Hewson.
“If we understand each other the distances between us collapse and enable us to come together,” King says. “I’m passionate about this.” Does he hope Other Voices will outlive him? He laughs. “Well, not long left to go now … I hope Other Voices does outlive me and that it continues to make a contribution to capture and celebrate our amazing and diverse voices in Ireland.”
Other Voices is on RTE2 at 11pm every Thursday
