Daithi

Daithi will play a live set with special guests at Music Minds.

Daithi is an electronic music producer obsessed by the culture of Ireland. The two time choice award nominee combines nature recordings, old Irish samples and analog synths to create a unique type of house music that’s soaked in Irish culture. A mainstay in the Irish gigging scene, his live show is an improvised performance, creating on the spot dance music using synths, drum machines and live fiddle.

Susan O'Neill

SON is the stage name of Susan O Neill, a woman who argues through her song, for a transnational melding of musical styles, encompassing the old and new.  SON was shortlisted as PureMzine’s ‘One to Watch’ but more recently won a trip to perform at the Milwaukee Irish fest in conjunction with Tradfest Temple bar. Hailing from picturesque Co. Clare, the prodigiously gifted singer-songwriter honed her musical skills as one of the youngest members of the Ennis Brass Band and gained her first gospel influences with the Really Truly Joyful Gospel Choir. ‘In Clare, there is always a song in the air.’ Later venturing to Waterford to study a BA in Music, SON has been collaborating with festival favourites King Kong Company and Propeller Palms.

Leo Abrahams

Leo Abrahams is an English musician, composer and producer. He has collaborated with a multitude of musicians, including Brian Eno, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, David Holmes, David Byrne, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Carl Barât, Jon Hopkins and Paul Simon. After attending the Royal Academy of Music in England, he started his musical career by touring as lead guitarist with Imogen Heap. Since 2005 he has released five solo albums, largely in an ambient style involving complex arrangements and a use of guitar-generated textures. He has also co-written or arranged a variety of film soundtracks, including Peter Jackson‘s 2009 release The Lovely Bones and Steve McQueen‘s Hunger. Recently, Leo has produced Regina Spektor’s album ‘Remember Us to Life’, Hayden Thorpe’s ‘Diviner’, Editor’s ‘Violence’ and Ghostpoet’s ‘Dark Days + Canapés’. In March 2020 Leo will be touring Europe on an ambient show with Jon Hopkins playing in venues including The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre and an already sold-out show at the Royal Albert Hall.

Bantum

Ruairi Lynch aka Bantum is a Cork native electronic music producer who mixes elements of electronica, funk, dance and hip hop. He has been releasing music for close to 10 years, culminating in the 2016 RTE Choice prize-nominated album ‘Move’. He has performed in Ireland, the USA and the UK, held slots at festivals including Electric Picnic, Body & Soul, Sounds from a Safe Harbour, It Takes A Village and supported the likes of Chet Faker and Jon Hopkins. He has released a number of music & video projects this year with Loah, God Knows, Ben Bix and Farah Elle. Ruairi has also worked on the upcoming short film ‘VOID’ directed by Ger Duffy and produced by Motherland Films. He is currently working on another short documentary with Motherland films alongside many more music projects for 2020.

Solkatt

Shakalak

A-li-ce

A-li-ce  (*FR – Berlin) works as a live video artist and as a VJ since 2005. She uses different techniques such as drawing, animation and video in order to create her hybrid time collages in motion. Currently fascinated by biological structures, she proposes in her recent works some innovative stories between imagination and reality by using on stage what she calls « live organic editing » to create her visual journeys.  A-li-ce has showcased her work on the international audiovisual art scene (Mapping Festival (CH), Mira Festival (ES), B-Seite (DE), LPM (IT), Vidéoformes (FR), RoBOt Festival (IT), etc.), with solo and collective projects.  She won the 2nd New Medias Celeste Prize in New York in 2011. Her multi-media work Fucking Wonderland was presented in Kyoto at the National Manga Museum in spring 2014.

Ships

Irish Electronic-Songster Duo Ships,  Simon Cullen and Sorca McGrath won the Choice Music Prize Album of the Year 2017. They will play a live set at Music Minds 2020.

Mark Graham

Mark G is a lecturer in the Department of Creative and Performing Arts at Waterford Institute of Technology by day and is a drummer, vocalist and trombonist with King Kong Company by night. Mark has previously worked for Today FM and RTE Radio. His first book, A Year of Festivals in Ireland, documented his quest to attend three Irish festivals per week for an entire year. He ended up attending three Irish festivals per week for three years, while writing his Festival Fit column for The Irish Times. A Year of Festivals in Ireland won Travel Book of the Year at the Travel Writers Awards 2015. The associated Year of Festivals blog won Best Popular Culture Blog at the Irish Blog Awards.

Steve Wall

Steve Wall is an Irish musician and actor, lead singer and songwriter with legendary Irish bands The Walls and The Stunning. Known for roles in Vikings, Silent Witness, Moone Boy, Rebellion and An Klondike, his latest project is playing the jazz musician Chet Baker in ‘My Foolish Heart’, a new Dutch feature about the trumpeter’s last days in Amsterdam.

Emma Langford

Winner of the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Award for ‘Best Emerging Artist in 2018′, Emma Langford has wasted no time making her mark on the Irish & international folk scene. Emma is described by song-writing legend Phil Coulter as ‘a breath of fresh air’. Noted for a vocal timbre which dances playfully among the nuances of ‘folk’, her voice is at once defiant and ethereal, her lyrics insightful yet loaded with wit and whimsy. Comparisons are often drawn in style and sound to historically-famed songwriters such as Joni Mitchell and Janis Ian. Hailing from Limerick City in the South-West of Ireland, her fusion of home-grown brazen wit and piercingly insightful lyrics combine to create the enthralling live presence for which the young artist has become so well-known. The Irish Times describe Emma Langford’s debut album Quiet Giant as ‘music that weaves a spell as you listen to it’.

Adian Foley

Aidan started out recording Gospel and Chimurenga music in Zimbabwe in the late 80’s. This is where he first got the chance to get behind the cutting desk, of a Gramma Records VMS 70 disc cutting lathe. After studying at the Recording Workshop in Ohio, USA in 1988, he moved to Dublin and within a few years he was producing/engineering records for the likes of Christy Moore,Rollerskate Skinny and My Bloody Valentine. Aidan spent the rest of the early nineties producing bands in studios all over the world, but his favorite part of the process was always flying over to London to mastering studios such as Abbey Road or Metropolis for ‘The Cut’. It was here that he started to learn the fundamentals of a good mastering job. Today Aidan has over 30 years of experience mastering audio in all genres of music. If you’ve spoken to Aidan you’ll know that he has a passion for great sounding audio. Despite his heavy work schedule he always finds time to  restore his classic cars and valve amps.

Fergal Davis

Fergal Davis has had a long career as a recording and mixing engineer, and has been mastering records since 2001. He started as a bassist in numerous bands and soon found out that his heart lay in the studio. He started learning his craft at the Sound Training Centre, Dublin, and spent many years subsequently working in numerous Dublin studios especially within Sun Studios and Apollo Studios in Temple Bar.  His mastering credits include Fontaines DC, Sinéad O’Connor and Muse and countless clients from all genres of music from the past 2 decades. The fact that artists return to his studio again and again is testament to his talent and professionalism in mastering.

Eleanor McEvoy

As well as being the chair of IMRO, Eleanor McEvoy achieved star status in Ireland in 1992 when her song “A Woman’s Heart” was the title track for the A Woman’s Heart anthology album.  A Woman’s Heart has since gone on to become the best-selling album in Irish history. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an honours degree in music and was accepted to the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland as a violinist.  She released her eponymous debut on Geffen records followed with tours in the USA, Europe and the Far East. She moved to Columbia Records in New York for her second album “What’s Following Me?”. “Precious Little”, the first single, was a top ten radio hit in the US. Since then, Eleanor has gone on to become an artist and performer known throughout the world. Her critically acclaimed canon of work spans thirteen albums, fifty singles, and appearances on numerous compilation albums. She has also had numerous cover versions of her songs by performers such as Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Phil Coulter, Mary Coughlan and Bella Hardy.

Ultan Conlon

After the success of his previous record ’Last Days Of The Night Owl’, Ultan Conlon returns in 2020 with his fourth studio album titled, ‘There’s a Waltz’, Recorded in LA in August of 2019. ‘There’s a Waltz’ is produced by Sean Watkins (Nicklecreek) and features some of LA’s best known session players. Gabe Witcher – fiddle (The Punch Brothers, Paul Simon) Don Huffington – Drums  (Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow) Sebastian Steinberg – Bass (Eddie Vedder, Neil Diamond) Sara Watkins – Vocals (Nicklecreek, I’m With Her) Rich Hinman – Pedal Steel (KD Lang, St. Vincent) Tyler Chester, Hammond and Piano (Jackson Browne, Andrew Bird). Ultan has come off the back of sell out shows in Ireland, Los Angeles and opened for John Fogerty at Dublins 3 Arena, Brian Ferry at Summer Series at Trinity College and Mavis Staples at The Olympia Theatre. His songs have been covered by John Martyn and Mary Coughlan amongst others. 

Richard Dowling

Over 30 years Richard Dowling has worked as a dedicated mastering engineer. Richard is one of the most experienced audio engineers in Ireland. With the only purpose-built hardware-based mastering room in the country in his native Limerick, Wav Mastering is a tour de force both in Ireland and internationally. Previously, Dowling was house engineer for Pete Waterman’s PWL standalone mastering facility Transformation (the Stock Aitken Waterman hit machine) working with Simons Cowell and Fuller and acts as diverse as Kylie Minogue, Napalm Death, Suede and Westlife. From the current base, acts such as Jape and SOAK have been Choice Award winners and the diversity continues from Beoga to Christy Moore to Pillow Queens to The Rubberbandits.

Steo Wall

Steo Wall is an emerging talent on the Irish music scene, a striking wordsmith with a unique musical style. His live sets have been described as pure alchemy. Steo has an eclectic taste to his music which shines through the multi-genre array of songs at his disposal.

Dr Kerry Hagan

Dr Kerry Hagan is a composer and researcher working in both acoustic and computer media. She develops real-time methods for spatialization and stochastic algorithms for musical practice. Her work endeavours to achieve aesthetic and philosophical aims while taking inspiration from mathematical and natural processes. In this way, each work combines art with science and technology from various domains. Her works have been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. 

Ray Wingnut

Ray Wingnut presents Alt Spin on Spin Southwest. He owns and manages Wingnut Records.

Myriam Riand

Myriam Riand is a visual artist based in Ennistymon, Co. Clare. Her recent work has been inspired by the vibrant local music scene where she has collaborated with a variety of artists to create album artwork & promotional material. Using film photography as her medium of choice she adapts her designs to incorporate the texture and deliberate imperfections of analog image making.

Aaron Casey

Aaron Casey is Head of Business at BIMM Dublin. He is a Music Rights and Royalties Consultant.

Sorca McGrath

Sorca McGrath – Play Therapist, Psychotherapist, Amygdala Whisperer, Advocacy & Song.

Emmet Condon

Emmet Condon is a dj, promoter and music maker. Best known as head honcho of independent promotion outfit Homebeat and also as a key part of the Another Love Story team, Emmet also djs regularly across Dublin and the festival scene where the heart, warmth and love of emotion filled music that permeates the events he runs also shines through in his sets.

Matt Griffin

Graham Sweeney