Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

It’s not much when you say it fast,” goes the opening to the Ocelots’ new album, teeing up the record’s title, Everything, When Said Slowly. “The guy that is the voice of that little snippet at the start is talking about Rosslare Harbour,” says Ashley Watson, one half of the duo alongside his twin Brandon. “It has, in itself, a huge history of people growing up there and eventually leaving.”

The album arrives next Friday, February 7 – and five days later, on February 12, they play the Black Gate in Galway. Now based in Leipzig, the Wexford natives are perennial tourers and used to life away from home. The album, like the quote about Rosslare, explores themes around that distance.

“When we analysed all of the songs on the album and we were looking at it as a whole, we realised that the songs were accidentally political,” Ashley says.

“There were lots of different themes of adjustment and distancing yourself from a place. That topic of leaving a place and the concept of home within the place that you are was always there.

“When we looked at the album as a whole, it seemed like the poetry within that topic was bubbling to the surface. Everything, When Said Slowly was spectating different distance through the perception of time. The years can seem like they’ve gone in an instant but at the same time, when you’re away, it feels like an eternity that you’ve been somewhere else.”

“We’ve travelled and been touring artists for so many years of our lives. We tried to play concerts in different places to pay rent. That was a kind of weird conundrum we were facing as small, independent artists.

“Definitely I think, as people, we have an identity of moving along and a sort of complex about staying in the same place.”

The Ocelots raised over €20,000 to fund Everything, When Said Slowly on Kickstarter.  It afforded them the opportunity to record with Gavin Glass, a producer who has worked with Lisa Hannigan and Villagers, back in Wexford.

Pictured: The Ocelots…Galway gig at the Black Gate on February 12.