Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

A self-titled EP from Galway-based three-piece Derek Ellard & the Future Business Model is set for release next month, and each of its five tracks are likely to contain the hallmarks of the group’s sound – a jangly, ethereal dissonance that plays out to be at once challenging and poignant in its resolution. The second single from the EP, Electricity, arrives on March 24.

Derek is a songwriter who places huge emphasis on prosody and narrative. With February’s Three Sheets to the Wind, he invoked plenty of nostalgia with stories of his childhood and his relationship with his brother. Electricity presents a love story to his wife, built around images of energy sources and a simile-heavy writing style.

“The story behind this is from whenever the last decent weather was – last summer maybe,” Derek explains.

“My lovely wife came in and she had a big red head on her from running around outside and she said, ‘I think I might be solar powered’. I wrote it down in my notebook and literally that night, me and a friend of mine were trying to write songs with just E major, trying to do the least amount of chords possible. It didn’t end up like that but it’s how it all started.

“The lyrics just kind of ran out of me – every line is a simile to do with electricity and being powered. It was a little writing exercise because I wanted to see if I could knock out a few tunes in just a couple of days to stay limber. It just flew out of me and it’s always nice when those ones happen.

“Electricity was just one of those things where I was messing around with lines and laughing away, and it was all light-hearted. Next thing you know then it was done.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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