Premiere: Stano ‘Emma Wild’

Ever groundbreaking Dublin label All City are set to reissue the 1983 debut solo album from Irish post-punk pioneer Stano, ‘Content To Write In I Dine Weathercraft’.

Less a composer, more a puppet master or mad scientist, Stano’s lack of strict instrumental knowledge meant the music he made, along with his assorted collaborators, always oozed with an essential experimental, off-kilter edge. Throughout the album what’s most apparent is a sheer fascination with sounds, unconventional and grating as they can be. Having spent formative years in Dublin punk band The Threat, that DIY, improvised ethos fully defined Stano’s work at the time of this album’s recording, with fusions of everyday sound, poetry and music.

That ethos continues to define Stano today, who, three decades later, continues to operate as an active member of Ireland’s underground arts and music scene.

‘Content To Write In I Dine Weathercraft’ features a cast of musicians active in Ireland at the time including Michael O'Shea, Roger Doyle, Donald Teskey, Vinnie Murphy and Detroit born Jerome Rimson.

‘Emma Wild’ – which you can hear below – is one of the album’s most immediate, vocally unhinged cuts. In it, you can hear the ravaged dirt of bands like The Fall, who released ‘Hex Enduction Hour’ the year before. Most interestingly, you can hear a marvellously deranged vocal style that would go on to be captured by one of the most important Irish bands of the past decade, Girl Band.

This reissue follows All City’s revered ‘Quare Groove Vol.1’ from last year which saw the label remastering and releasing a collection of underground funk, disco, post-punk from Ireland from the ‘70s and ‘80s. The label also recently released the latest album from John Daly last month, from which we premiered the track ‘Milestones’.

‘Content To Write In I Dine Weathercraft’ is out next Monday 15th October. Pre-order it here.