Lullahush returns with new single "Maggie na bhFlaitheas" + announces new album "Ithaca" | Out 11th April via Future Classic
LULLAHUSH RETURNS WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS NEW ALBUM ITHACA
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SHARES NEW SINGLE / VIDEO “MAGGIE NA BHFLAITHEAS"
NEW ALBUM OUT 11TH APRIL VIA FUTURE CLASSIC
Today, Ivor Novello Rising nominated, Athens-based Dublin artist Lullahush (AKA Daniel McIntyre) returns with details of his new album Ithaca - out 11th April via Future Classic (SOPHIE, Chet Faker, Flume). Following on from his 2024 EP An Todchaí, the new album sees Lullahush exploring the discourse between tradition and innovation, as he explores how a holistic marriage of traditional Irish music and contemporary electronica can express a unique perspective on modern Irish identity.
The recent EP’s three tracks — “An Caoineadh” (The Crying), “An Grá” (The Love), and “An Todchaí” (The Future) — posed the sonic “what-if?” questions about traditional-electronic interaction. In places it’s unapologetically bombastic, the instrumentation uncannily traditional, samples taken from friends drunkenly imitating RTÉ newscasters at a festival on Inis Oírr. There are tongue-in-cheek send ups of the countries generalised love affair with alcohol, with chopped up “Irish-isms” laid down over intense, intricate bass workouts; comparisons between Chicago Footwork and Clare set dancing; and recontextualised samples of musicologist (and master accordion player) Tony McMahon bemoaning “the future of Irish Traditional Music”. It highlights a passionate conversation between tradition and innovation that illuminates the past while looking to the future: respectful without being dogmatic; playful yet serious.
The LP Ithaca continues this experimental ethos while weaving a narrative interrogating ideas of pride, home and belonging. Longing for home in exile has been widespread amongst the Irish diaspora over the years. This includes 19th-century famine refugees, 20th-century exiles fleeing the Catholic Church's oppression, those who left during the economic depression of the 1980s, and more recently, those affected by Ireland's housing crisis and Dublin's embrace of Big Tech. Daniel explores all of this as well as his own odyssey with him now living in Europe as a result of his homeland becoming “economically uninhabitable.” “I miss it, but I have a difficult relationship with it” says McIntyre. “‘Ithaca’ is where Odyssus is trying to get back to in the Odyssey — my search for a sense of home since leaving has made me think about what Ithaca means. Maybe it's not a place, maybe it's a series of circumstances, maybe it's something internal, maybe it’s something you carry around with you.”
The first taste of this journey comes in the form of “Maggie na bhFlaitheas” (Maggie of the Heavens), which morphs the reel (a genre of social Celtic folk dance) “Over The Moore To Maggie” into the album’s statement piece — an organic form of electronic music that blends both styles into a sound that is not one in the context of the other but a comprehensive fusing of the two. The track is accompanied by a fast-paced visual piece that flies through pictures and short films of rural Ireland, religious imagery, towns, parties, and the coast, reflecting the juxtaposition of new and old; natural and manmade.
WATCH / SHARE THE VIDEO FOR “MAGGIE NA BHFLAITHEAS” HERE
This statement of intent sets down a series of aesthetic declarations that form a modern interpretation of Irish romanticism. “I am very excited by the power that sampling offers a bedroom producer like me to build multi-layer narratives and self-referential worlds,” says McIntyre. This is expanded upon across the first half of the record, which opens to the cry of a curlew before leading into Sean-nós singer Saileog Ní Cheannabháin’s ethereal rendition of “An Droighneán Donn” (The Blackthorn Bush). Elsewhere, Maija Sofia’s voice drifts through “Jimmy An Chladaigh” (Jimmy of the Shore) and the bodhrán breaks of “Maija an Uisce” (Maija of the Water), culminating in “Maddy na Farraige” (Maddy Of The Sea), where the maritime longing of The Grey Funnel Line is reimagined as a contemporary Garage workout.
Side B shifts into darker territory with “Kitty na Gaoithe” (Kitty of the Wind), a haunting deconstructed techno interpretation of Irish keening (a funeral singing tradition), followed by the experimental “Dónal na Gealaí” (Daniel of the Moon), where fragmented samples and a Berghain-heavy bass concertina drop create a sense of emotional collapse. A hidden love story threads through the album, reaching its climax with “Máire na Réiltíní” (Mary of the Little Stars), inspired by Odysseus Elitis’ Maria Nefeli and layered with captured moments of an ephemeral affair. The journey concludes with “Raglan Road”, built around a WhatsApp voice note of the artist’s 97-year-old great uncle Jack singing the Patrick Kavanagh poem, interwoven with the artist’s own unadorned voice—bridging generations and leaving the listener with a sense of timeless connection and yearning for unreachable Ithacas.
The next stage in this project’s development will be a collaboration with an ensemble of like-minded musicians who have a shared interest in exploring what the future of traditional music can sound like. “I am trying to find ways of bringing risk and chaos to the show, to make something fragile and intimate that lives and breathes in front of an audience,” continues McIntyre. “My collaborators and I have been working with tapes, feedback, contact mics, live sampling and a haphazard pile of synths, pedals and whatever is lying around in order to articulate live the sentiment of what those processes created.” With gigs planned for this summer the dates will set out not to recreate the album but to expand on it. Every show will be an experiment, no two will be the same, as Lullahush creates arrangements that engage with their subjective experience of each song and its wider cultural context, delving into their stories and iterations as well as the folklore surrounding them, in an attempt to show how electronic methods can really serve the tradition in a comprehensive and reverential way.
Live dates:
1st May - The Workman’s Club, Dublin w/ Róis (SOLD OUT)
Ithaca is out 11th April via Future Classic – Pre-save HERE
