On the Rise
ØXN

Releasing their debut record CYRM next Friday through the iconic Irish label Claddagh Records, it’s a dark, pronounced and volatile ride through expansive touchstones of doom folk. “I’m such a big fan of classic horror movie soundtracks and things like that,” continues Katie Kim. “There’s no better time to try and do it when everyone has time off during a global pandemic and trying to get a bit apocalyptic on it.”

Irish quartet ØXN’s formation and lineage is a tricky tale to navigate. Peat is best known for her role in acclaimed folk group Lankum, while Kim has an esteemed solo career. The two were paired together to participate in the 2018 edition of Dublin’s MusicTown series. “I was extremely obsessed with Katie’s music and terrified of her,” laughs Peat.

Originally, the two artists were supposed to prepare a brief collaboration before each performing solo. However, as they started to create, things escalated. Their end performance was entirely collaborative and they enlisted John 'Spud' Murphy to do live sound.

Often the “invisible fifth member” of Lankum, Murphy does the band’s live sound and co-produces their records, including this year’s Mercury Prize nominated False Lankum. Alongside his production skills, he’s also a member of Irish experimental rock band Percolator, with Eleanor Myler. “He’s just been in all of our musical lives forever,” she smiles.

There are plenty more crossovers between the four members of ØXN that form the warm foundations of their new collective. “It all came together really easy because as you may have just seen a glimpse of, we are around each other a lot and from very similar musical realms,” says Peat.

Peat and Kim performed at MusicTown and as part of Cork’s Quiet Lights in 2018 before everyone was swept back up in their primary projects. “We didn’t get to do it again because of life,” says Peat. Jump forward to 2020 when Kim, who was living in New York at the time, supported Lankum at the Mercury Lounge. “We said goodbye to each other for a couple of years but then the pandemic hit, Katie ended up coming home from New York, we ended up living around the corner from each other and decided, hey, let’s revisit that material from 2018. We were both really sad that it just stopped and that it didn’t get to be fully realised,” Peat continues.

Bringing in Murphy and Myler, they made a plan to play some small shows. But as Covid cases spiked they were forced to scale things back, instead opting for a livestream in a renovated Martello tower, collaborating with local artist Vicky Langan on visuals. At the time, the group had been approached by Claddagh Records, a label steeped in Irish history. “It’s halfway between a record label and something like a heritage archive,” explains Peat.

Formed in 1959 as a means to preserve Irish cultural heritage, the label hadn’t released any new music in nearly two decades, instead concentrating on archival and catalogue reissues. Their work with ØXN marks their first current release in eighteen years. “They approached us and they got to see our livestream. It’s an interesting statement, that we would be the first thing they’d bring out because, is it even folk? No one knows,” says Peat.

Using the time off from their usual projects that the pandemic afforded them, the quartet hunkered down in Dublin’s Hellfire Studio and began to flesh out Peat and Kim’s original works. Quite fittingly, much of the music was recorded during petulant weather. “It’s up the mountains so it’s pretty exposed. When we went to record there was a problem that you could hear the wind whistling through the studio, so we tried to fix it for about an hour then we were like, fuck it, let’s just embrace the creepy wind going through all the microphones,” smiles Murphy.

Alongside the elements, ØXN incorporated a playfulness into their often brooding, eerie and complex tracks. Washing up gloves were slapped and packs of Tayto crisps attacked to add to the atmospheric tapestry of CYRM. “There’s also just loads of screaming,” laughs Peat.

Across the album, the group pull on traditional tales and centre their imagery and narratives from the perspective of women. Often unjust, persecuted or oppressed, their lore matches with the sparse and unnerving hauntings of tracks like album opener “Cruel Mother”. A ten minute lament with its roots in traditional folk performance, the video features an emotive and arresting turn by Irish actor Olwen Fouéré.

While working on a score with Ian Lynch of Lankum, Murphy found himself in studio running re-records with Fouéré who starred in the film. The two struck up a rapport, and he invited her to collaborate on the clip. “She was really forthcoming with her time and even understanding the concept,” says Myler, who co-directed the video. “She’ll take on every idea you have and turn it into something that you could never have imagined. While it's extremely minimal and so, so simple, she put an awful lot of herself into it. That day was incredibly emotional and we wouldn’t have had a video without her.”

Some tracks like chaotic and menacing recent single “Love Henry” take root in traditional folklore, while others are prudently selected cover versions of songs that ØXN felt fit the narrative of their project. “Our ‘Love Henry’ is from the same general song as the traditional ‘Henry Lee’, but it’s a lesser known offshoot. I got our version from a singer called Judy Henska. We did adapt it and we did change things, but it’s very heavily based on her version,” Peat explains. “It’s weird to say, but I’m very interested in murder ballads so I’ve looked into them a lot and this is the only version I’ve ever found where it’s a woman murdering a man and not the other way around.”

There’s also an expansive reinterpretation of Scott Walker’s “Farmer in the City” and a soaring cover of “The Wife of Michael Cleary” by fellow Irish artist Maija Sofia. “That really speaks to the world we’re trying to create and the kind of stuff we were trying to talk about, which is slightly ostracised female characters and a bit about women in general in Ireland, cast aside female stories.” explains Peat.

OnCYRM, ØXN emphasise not only their own gripping take on all that came before, but they synthesise it with 21st century collaboration and aesthetics to create something that’s both ghostly and confronting, repositioning stories and moving them forwards in time.