Life is funny sometimes. When I was planning the sessions at Kilkenny Roots, I reached out and asked if Joshua Burnside would be able to make his way south from Belfast. He wasn’t. But on my way home I noticed he had a show in Utrecht coming up later that same spring. So, the morning after his show, Burnside, guitarist Dan Byrne-Mccullough & cellist Zara Byrne-Mccullough joined me in a wharf cellar at the Oudegracht, which is the studio and home of local artist Kees Wennekendonk, and recorded a session. Two of the three songs we filmed are online now. Watch them play Ghost Of The Bloomfield Road and a mesmerizing cover of Vampire Weekend’s Step.
Anything but traditional
Burnside’s approach to folk music is anything but traditional. He deconstructs it, and incorporates lo-fi, sound collage, tape loops and unusual instrumentation. His latest record Teeth of Time addresses contemporary fatherhood, among other matters. As Burnside stated, this feels like his most hopeful family of songs to date. Teeth of Time was written against the background of becoming a dad. But alongside all that joy, came anxiety about the future. He wrote the songs between Belfast and Comber, Donegal and Paris, and recorded in his unsound-proof makeshift studio in Belfast city centre. So the sounds of the city, his home and family life, are all key parts and drivers of these tracks.
On tour in the States
Burnside is about to embark on a tour in the United States. Find all dates here.
Photos
Credits
Filmed & edited by Matthijs van der Ven
Audio recorded & mixed by Matthijs van der Ven
Location
Kees Wennekendonk
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Thanks
Kees Wennekendonk
There is no better way to discover music than watching great musicians cover the songs they love. The Influences has been producing these videos ever since 2008.
Read more.
Keep watching
Thank you for watching and enjoying this session. You’ll probably like some other sessions from The Influences’ archive too, like these earlier ones we filmed.
-
Kim Janssen
A couple of weeks ago, Janssen and his band joined us at the Schenk Studio in Amsterdam to record two astounding cover versions of Vampire Weekend’s ‘Ya Hey’ and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’. ‘Ya Hey’s chorus is so stunning, it made me want to sing it myself.’
-
Áine Gordon
Áine Gordon has recently started a new chapter in her artistic career with the release of her first EP The Stray (produced by Joshua Burnside). The 4-track release has garnered a positive and unexpected reaction. People are resonating with different songs in unique ways, often hearing things even Gordon herself hadn’t initially perceived, which she…
-
Joshua Burnside
Life is funny sometimes. When I was planning the sessions at Kilkenny Roots, I reached out and asked if Joshua Burnside would be able to make his way south from Belfast. He wasn’t. But on my way home I noticed he had a show in Utrecht coming up later that same spring. So, the morning…