Decal
Alan O'Boyle and Dennis McNulty have been pivotal to the development of Dublin's electronic music scene. Kate Butler spoke to the duo, better known as Decal, back in 2002.
Grotto-like, light boxes lined the walls of the launch venue for the upcoming Dublin Electronic Arts Festival (DEAF), each beaming out the name and logo of the different music labels involved. While some are established and others have yet to prove themselves, all have been helped or inspired by Alan O'Boyle and Dennis McNulty, two Dubliners known as Decal. In the early 1990s, when Ireland's dance music scene was absorbed in its love affair with DJs, Decal mined the city's history of music and got down to the business of producing. Releasing their debut album in 1994, Ultramack 004 caught the attention of Andy Weatherall and he licensed two of the tracks, releasing them on Sabrettes. Ever since, Decal's music has found homes on an array of international labels, as well as being released on their own imprints, Ultramack and Trama Industries.
O'Boyle and McNulty went on to launch the careers of Phil Kieran and Ambulance and promote at the Funnel, a club which became a crucial catalyst for today's thriving production scene in Dublin. However, in some ways, the effect they've had on a small community has overshadowed their own achievements.
They remain loyal subscribers to the indie way of doing things; O'Boyle, 31, works full-time as a software engineer, while McNulty, 32, works in programming. While everything they've released has had international distribution, it has been funded by themselves and so is done on a small scale. Their latest album, 404 Not Found was released by a British label, Planet Mu – its owner, Mike Paradinas, enjoys a relatively high profile, but his label is young and promotes with the same sort of stealth as Decal's own label, Ultramack.
There are no easily absorbed melodies on the pensive 404 Not Found to make it palatable to all; none of the singles off the album will have flash videos directed by Chris Cunningham for heavy rotation on MTV. However, if the way they operate is cautious, it has afforded them an abundance of artistic freedom. "We know what we want at the end of the day and if there are people that see us as lacking in ambition then so be it. They would probably have the same opinion about most of the artists in my record collection", says O'Boyle.
That they are big fish in a small pond, and simultaneously mere plankton in the global ocean of dance music is more than acceptable to the two. "We're trying to communicate something with our music but also with the way we do things," says McNulty. "The 'method' is the message, or at least some of it. We are the only people who decide what is right for us to do. We make mistakes of course, but when we do, we don't need a major label to bale us out. We are self-sufficient."
While such worthiness and disinterest in conforming to anyone's expectations of them may be unpalatable to some, there is no esoteric agenda. Both cite pop as their gateway to music: their influences include Chaka Khan as well as Kraftwerk, The Police as well as Aphex Twin. "It's easy to be very po-faced about what you do," says McNulty. "I always have it in the back of my mind that the thing that attracted me to music was pop music and the glitches in pop. They're the things that propel you to actually find out about music."
McNulty found an idea put forward by Chuck Eddy in his book, The Accidental Evolution of Rock'n'Roll resonated with Decal's modus operandi: The Gladys Knight and the Pips theory comes from the juxtaposition the harsh tones of Knight's voice with the lush backing vocals of the Pips – "it's like a Trojan horse. That's almost our attitude – you have to have that balance, the rough and the smooth, the sweetness and the harshness. I think most good music is a trade off of those things. You need to create some sort of friction to make it worth listening to again – there's something about it that doesn't quite fit and that's usually the thing that makes you go back and listen."
Both McNulty and O'Boyle had been involved with making music long before their debut album, which is a hypnotic excursion into funky, iridescent and down tempo techno. They met when McNulty responded to an ad for sessions with O'Boyle's indie band. The pair pooled the equipment they had in order to produce work inspired by Steve Reich's phasing, and much like what Papa M does now, layered guitars with electronica underneath. However, insufficient studio equipment meant they had to leave the guitar out. "It became electronica by default," says O'Boyle.
By the time Decal released their second album, Lo-Lite in 1997, they had moved from lush techno beats to slow tempo break beats. In 1999 they began releasing a series of electro 12"s on their new imprint, Trama Industries. The gritty funk of electro pulsed with an urgency that both were feeling as the Funnel was shutting down and the promise of new music in Ireland seemed frustratingly unattainable – "This town is cracking up, this town has broke down", was the message they etched into the vinyl of Dreaming of Electric She EP, in homage to Thin Lizzy. As it turned out the releases would pre-empt a deluge of Irish electronica releases from labels such as FrontEnd Synthetics, Bassbin and Kin. They would also prove to be their most successful output in terms of raising their profile abroad. "Before, we did so many different things it was hard for people to get a handle on us," says McNulty. "Those dance-floor releases have a very particular sound. It made it easier for people to pin us down."
After the concrete, distinctive sounds of the singles, though, Decal have returned to their avant-garde roots with 404 Not Found, combining rock and dance influences but also tipping their hats to Steve Reich and another electronic pioneer, John Carpenter.
Having spent so long being Ireland's sole dance-music export, apart from D1 Records, they are now part of DEAF, a festival that celebrates a new era for Irish music. One of its organisers, Eamonn Doyle of D1, once said that Dublin had the potential to become known as a city of electronic music. Thanks to Decal, it looks at least possible.
O'Boyle and McNulty went on to launch the careers of Phil Kieran and Ambulance and promote at the Funnel, a club which became a crucial catalyst for today's thriving production scene in Dublin. However, in some ways, the effect they've had on a small community has overshadowed their own achievements.
They remain loyal subscribers to the indie way of doing things; O'Boyle, 31, works full-time as a software engineer, while McNulty, 32, works in programming. While everything they've released has had international distribution, it has been funded by themselves and so is done on a small scale. Their latest album, 404 Not Found was released by a British label, Planet Mu – its owner, Mike Paradinas, enjoys a relatively high profile, but his label is young and promotes with the same sort of stealth as Decal's own label, Ultramack.
There are no easily absorbed melodies on the pensive 404 Not Found to make it palatable to all; none of the singles off the album will have flash videos directed by Chris Cunningham for heavy rotation on MTV. However, if the way they operate is cautious, it has afforded them an abundance of artistic freedom. "We know what we want at the end of the day and if there are people that see us as lacking in ambition then so be it. They would probably have the same opinion about most of the artists in my record collection", says O'Boyle.
That they are big fish in a small pond, and simultaneously mere plankton in the global ocean of dance music is more than acceptable to the two. "We're trying to communicate something with our music but also with the way we do things," says McNulty. "The 'method' is the message, or at least some of it. We are the only people who decide what is right for us to do. We make mistakes of course, but when we do, we don't need a major label to bale us out. We are self-sufficient."
While such worthiness and disinterest in conforming to anyone's expectations of them may be unpalatable to some, there is no esoteric agenda. Both cite pop as their gateway to music: their influences include Chaka Khan as well as Kraftwerk, The Police as well as Aphex Twin. "It's easy to be very po-faced about what you do," says McNulty. "I always have it in the back of my mind that the thing that attracted me to music was pop music and the glitches in pop. They're the things that propel you to actually find out about music."
McNulty found an idea put forward by Chuck Eddy in his book, The Accidental Evolution of Rock'n'Roll resonated with Decal's modus operandi: The Gladys Knight and the Pips theory comes from the juxtaposition the harsh tones of Knight's voice with the lush backing vocals of the Pips – "it's like a Trojan horse. That's almost our attitude – you have to have that balance, the rough and the smooth, the sweetness and the harshness. I think most good music is a trade off of those things. You need to create some sort of friction to make it worth listening to again – there's something about it that doesn't quite fit and that's usually the thing that makes you go back and listen."
Both McNulty and O'Boyle had been involved with making music long before their debut album, which is a hypnotic excursion into funky, iridescent and down tempo techno. They met when McNulty responded to an ad for sessions with O'Boyle's indie band. The pair pooled the equipment they had in order to produce work inspired by Steve Reich's phasing, and much like what Papa M does now, layered guitars with electronica underneath. However, insufficient studio equipment meant they had to leave the guitar out. "It became electronica by default," says O'Boyle.
By the time Decal released their second album, Lo-Lite in 1997, they had moved from lush techno beats to slow tempo break beats. In 1999 they began releasing a series of electro 12"s on their new imprint, Trama Industries. The gritty funk of electro pulsed with an urgency that both were feeling as the Funnel was shutting down and the promise of new music in Ireland seemed frustratingly unattainable – "This town is cracking up, this town has broke down", was the message they etched into the vinyl of Dreaming of Electric She EP, in homage to Thin Lizzy. As it turned out the releases would pre-empt a deluge of Irish electronica releases from labels such as FrontEnd Synthetics, Bassbin and Kin. They would also prove to be their most successful output in terms of raising their profile abroad. "Before, we did so many different things it was hard for people to get a handle on us," says McNulty. "Those dance-floor releases have a very particular sound. It made it easier for people to pin us down."
After the concrete, distinctive sounds of the singles, though, Decal have returned to their avant-garde roots with 404 Not Found, combining rock and dance influences but also tipping their hats to Steve Reich and another electronic pioneer, John Carpenter.
Having spent so long being Ireland's sole dance-music export, apart from D1 Records, they are now part of DEAF, a festival that celebrates a new era for Irish music. One of its organisers, Eamonn Doyle of D1, once said that Dublin had the potential to become known as a city of electronic music. Thanks to Decal, it looks at least possible.
