Dublin indie-pop three-piece Other Creatures release The First EP on 19th January through Trout Records. It’s full of gently shimmering tunes with the occasional broken-glass edge to keep you focussed, and draws on some mighty fine 90s influences from both sides of the Atlantic. We asked them to walk us through the four tracks:
Luxembourg
I think this song is a good introduction to the band, its what we usually start the shows with. Probably the most straightforward and raw version of our sound with loud guitars and drums but I’m still proud of the music, especially the descending guitar bit – I was pretty delighted having come up with that. I think I came up with the bridge high/low voice thing in the shower but its influenced by early Pavement. It has some of our most angsty lyrics but I can be quite shy and it’s just about that. Like a lot of the songs it’s more a collection of thoughts I have rather than being about one specific thing.
Birthal
This is my favourite on the ep. The melody popped into my head while I was studying and I made a pretty demented demo straightaway. I like how it has sort of a weird lullaby quality, like it could get stuck in your head and drive you a bit mad. I always thought of it as our own brand of love song I guess.
Soft & Sweet
Probably one of our earliest songs, maybe our most accessible too but we’re still very happy with it. I think Dave was messing around trying to play the EastEnders theme music when he came up with a basic version of the riff and we very much worked it out from there. Also it was one of our first goes at lyric writing. The ‘Soft & Sweet’ bit comes from me listening to Neutral Milk Hotel and thinking he said soft and sweet a lot. Also Gerry is my friends Dad.
Lady Boy
Again quite an early one. I always really enjoy playing this live – the guitar and drums are just kind of a nice break from our usual stuff. When we came up with the music for this I was really really excited as it gave me confidence that we could actually write music that I would listen to I guess. The lyrics are some of my earliest attempts at songwriting, it’s sort of another hopeless love song but also just about being an outsider. I have a hard time explaining the ‘Lady Boy’ lyric there’s really no malice or anything behind it I think Fionn had just come back from Thailand and all anyone ever mentions to people who come back from there are about the Thai ladyboys so it was in my head. It’s kind of stupid but it stuck.