Alternating Current: Dublin Report by Michael Holland
Alternating Current 2025 in Dublin (Ireland) started with my host Tom in his kitchen and that was the warm welcome that opened up Dublin for me. It felt like there was plenty of time for me to discover Ireland and its music culture. Tom, an teacher at the art school in Dublin, was the first point of contact with Dublin Digital Radio and he helped as much as he could to settle in to my time in Dublin and to feel welcomed by the festival. On my first day I walked around the dock area of the city with my field recorder to capture the sounds of industry and movement of goods coming into the city each day. Little did I know that the first part of the festival Cian McCarthy’s exhibition named 'Flickering' would focus on the slow motion invisible flickering of the lights in the same dock area I was walking around. Cian McCarthy is a Bray Based (Seaside Town just a few stops outside Dublin on the train) artist who also records music under the name Pesci Tooth.
It’s difficult to condense the experiences of the weekend of Alternating Current, so I’ve decided to share as much as I can and even provide a soundtrack to this text in the form of a bandcamp link. You can find everything there and even go deeper into some parts of the trip. Come along with me to the docks, where I tried to record interesting sounds, even in the windy weather. I recorded a short interview with Cian McCarthy, so you can hear a little of his voice that helps describe his work as an artist, as well as some short excerpts from the soundtrack to his exhibition.
You can find the audio parts accompanying the text in the link here.
Alongside the recordings is a show I made with Dan (Department of Energy - a label based in Dublin) which was a special moment for me. I met Dan last year in the Bolderaja bars in Rīga when he walked in and said hello. At that moment I didn't know anything about his music/ text/ design/ art /creative practice. I add all these words because it's difficult to pigeonhole it into one of these areas. His mixtapes come as zines, as well as in audio form, and they touch on many rural, historical, ecological and human themes. Sort of like having an epiphany while listening to music and having some kind of inspired conversation with a friend - then simultaneously having multiple realizations at once triggered by sound and words, one thing leads to another seamlessly…I could spend all day trying to explain this, but maybe it's best to listen to the mixtapes and our little show on DDR. It might help to make some sense of this.
Some of the other recordings I made were from different moments during talks and discussions curated by DDR for Alternating Current. I captured just a few moments of these discussions. Some moments I missed and tried to capture later, such as the moment with Tom Lye. All in all the whole festival was full of realizations and connections and it was more than just a music festival…it was that, and the music was fantastic…but the ideas and connections, the ways of thinking about sound and the people sharing their ideas was just as interesting for me listening. The many perspectives shared were connected with activism and almost everyone was following their dreams and creating projects that they feel just aren’t really provided for in other parts of the city. Such as the project run by Aisling Phelan called BASE - a sort of alternative use space that wasn’t a club or a bar, but more a safe comfortable space for people to go to for activities in the city. Somewhere where workshops and creativity could happen but wasn’t really catered for by any other organization in the city. I suppose on reflection that this kind of grassroots dynamic open (to all) space is the kind of space that many of the radios that are part of the ICRN network are striving to be. At least this is how it feels to me.
One of the talks about space (named Reclaiming Space for Play and Improvisation) shared a really interesting project about making use of mostly uncared for and often unused football fields. Gav Fahey from 1815 F.C. is also producing written matter in the form of zines and events taking place like a kind of unofficial alternative Sunday football league. Part of the aesthetic of almost all of these projects featured in the program were young people cleaning up and making their cities a nicer, cleaner, safer space to be. I think this radio culture that we are part of really does come hand in hand with the DIY self publishing culture of zines and also the more recent culture of bandcamp self released music or the long established DIY cassette tape culture that has found a renaissance recently. These small DIY organizations, although often start as a small idea from a handful of people in the city, have the power to grow into some kind of bigger institution. The important thing is that the small DIY space, as it grows does keep hold of its initial inspiration.
The night program - starting on Friday through to Sunday night - was full of surprises from the first act. Geis is a kind of folk psych jam trio with an enthusiastically played harp. I couldn’t find them on bandcamp but maybe they are there! I thought Ian Nyquist really considered the theme of Alternating Current. His performance was very fitting to the light in that beautiful Pepper Canister Church and as night fell, I felt Ian had really considered his composition for that moment. I felt like the whole festival was very considered and that also a lot of reading and thinking had gone on in order to come to this point. I was very excited to see this copy of ‘Going Out: Walking, Listening, Soundmaking’ and that Ian was also coming from a place of reading , and also really considering his sound making practice as art. The control in Ian’s music was evident in his projection into the church that Friday night. His use of fragments of radio also nodded to the theme of the festival. i invite you to take a little dip into his sound world and hear for yourself . You can find Ian’s most recent album here.
I can’t really talk about every artist I came across during the festival but a few really shone out to me, starting with Mel Keane who’s record I bought before i heard the concert. Whenever I come to a new city, I always take a trip to the most interesting record shop and for me in Dublin it has to be ALL CITY. Partly because I knew they were reissuing some albums from the Irish composer Roger Doyle, as well as his band Operating Theatre. But also because of their connection with DOME, and the seminal album from Michael O’Shea released on their label Allchival. This leads us to Mel Keane’s record ‘Airs’ that i feel is some kind of distant descendent of the Michael O’Shea record but filtered through some more modern ways of working. When I heard the record, I instantly knew i must take it home to listen again. Only then I realized that Mel was a friend of the festival and was playing on Saturday night! Mel had also designed one of the previous years graphic identity for Alternating Current, so this design/ art/ sound/ radio connection continues…
One other standout act for me, and a connection to the trad folk revival that’s been happening in Ireland for a while now, is the singers from the group Landless. This was a quite comical concert with incredibly serious music from four voices and occasionally a Shruti box. The combination of the music alongside the humorous interludes was just wonderful and the four singers harmonize these folk songs, their individual personalities and them each giving some space to share their stories, of all the artists I witnessed, I think this was my most treasured moment. Lots has been written about Landless as they have been active since 2013! They are also produced by John ‘Spud’ Murphy who is the producer closely connected to the Lankum band whom I discovered through meeting Sean from DDR on last year's ICRN trip!
Keeping the radio connection going, and how I really love radio as a means for sharing and discovering new music, I must talk about the label Nyahh that also came back to my attention through the music Sean shared last year on the ICRN trip to Kaunas, Lithuania. Mohammad Syfkhan is an artist who’s been helped to reach his audience in Ireland and worldwide thanks to his recent album release alongside his touring and ability to create a one man dance party in whatever place that he finds himself! This for me was a high point of the Saturday night programming of the festival and the moment when everyone got up to dance in celebration together. Mohammad clearly has a strong following in Ireland at this moment. You can discover him and the incredible Nyahh music label here.
To wrap up, for me it was a real pleasure to be able to come to Ireland for a trip, but really what it showed me is that there’s a huge amount of talent there in that island and for me to fully understand it I’d have to keep listening and searching for a long, long time. Represented here’s just a fraction of the variety of sound available, and even that could take a long time to dig through!
Michael Holland is a radio and sound producer based in Riga. He is behind the project Onotesla (Ono-Tesla tapes) - a Rīga based program that was originally started by himself and Paddy Shine in the NTS Manchester studios but has since developed a nomadic exploratory based structure highlighting experimental rhythmic based music made mostly by outsiders. He is also a founding member of ICRN.
This mobility trip to Dublin was supported by the support of the Nordic Culture Point, whose contribution has enabled us to build sustainable, cross-border collaborations in the field of community radio.