Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

For almost exactly a decade now, Mark McConville has been more familiar to audiences in Galway under his musical moniker, Rodney Owl. And in a perfect twist of fate, his first gig under his stage name was a support slot for The Black Gate co-founder Peadar King in An Taibhdhearc.

Because the bookend is that Mark is set to return to the venue this Thursday, April 13, to celebrate the launch of his new album Truth is Broken, which is set to become the sophomore record released by The Black Gate record label.

The LP breaks new ground for Rodney Owl – long a thoughtful, sophisticated songwriter with an understanding of melody that has drawn comparisons to Elliott Smith and The Beach Boys, Mark’s sound on Truth is Broken is richer and more luscious than anything it succeeds.

Its twelve tracks dance between stripped back, reflective meditations and abstract, guitar-driven indie-rock. Structuring the tracks to present a cohesive project took consideration.

“I kind of got stuck in the middle of it,” Mark recalls.

“Putting the track listing together was a hard part of it. It took a couple of weeks of back and forth with the guys in The Black Gate to try and make it flow. There are some quite hard sounding songs on there and then there’s some very soft and mellow stuff as well. It was a challenge to get that to sound cohesive… It was never really an intention while writing the thing to have an overlaying concept over everything.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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