Daithí

About

" Soulful beats referencing family, identity and tradition. "

Daithí Ó Drónaí is emphatically not a reality TV meet music type, but he was, when, still a teenager, he appeared on a show performing fantastically lively remixed fiddle tracks. Daithi’s mix of violin and looping, incorporating various Irish traditional reels, was his calling card for his opening years. It was a beautiful, enchanting and decade-spanning style, but one that’s faded as he’s progressed.

More recently, a vibrant live-dance act has emerged, minus the violin, taking advantage of a blend of samples often drawn from the environment, and gifted with the gentle tones and end-of-the-world feel of Ireland’s rugged west coast. In the brilliant ‘Mary Keanes Introduction’, for example, Daithi samples recordings of his grandmother, constructing a subtle beat-driven track that boasts real relaxed beauty, and launching him onto the international stage, with the help of Galway icon Gugai, who both manages Daithi and releases his music.

The track firmly marked Daithi’s change of direction, with his work since a meticulous construction of delicate dance tracks that use the subtlest of samples to very literally insert the sound of his surroundings into an unlikely nightclub environment. The result is slow-building and deliberate but enthralling, beats with the cleverest of meaning injected. Work like the Tribes’ EP is both unconventional for Ireland, but also fiercely evocative of the place of its birth. Appropriately, his LPs have largely appeared on local labels and seen Daithi fly to the peak of Ireland’s dance scene.

These days, Daithi is found running a kind of studio-meets-accommodation project in his Atlantic coastal home, where he continues to take field recordings from the local environment, collaborates with indie star Paul Noonan of BellX1 on his new project ‘Houseplants’, and producing more engaging beats. New album ‘I’m Here Now’ has more homespun references, comes with a beautiful short film associated with the single ‘Familial’, and sees a series of heartfelt collaborations lead Daithi out of a gorgeous period of pandemic productivity. True to form, the new record features gentle environmental recordings, a concertina, a sense of solace and an exploration of his relationship with his father. Despite its heartfelt depth, it absolutely bangs.

Updated by James Hendicott