Birds of Olympus – Irish Band of the Week

This week’s Irish Band of the Week is the unapologetically cool Birds of Olympus, an entrancing mix of post-punk/psychedelic and electronica. The Wicklow natives have already become renowned for their natural ease and dedication to creating fresh beats and their enigmatic live shows. For many bands, the first year is a formative one spent delicately cultivating their sound, hitting the usual Irish pubs and bars, they went straight for the jugular and performed at Dublin’s Hard Working Class Heroes. Their desire was to set their expectations as high as possible, leaving the safety of their hometown almost immediately to perform for bigger, more expectant crowds and fans.

This dedication quickly became the cornerstone of their reputation, grabbing the attention of SXSW organisers during their performance at HWCH. Their five showcase performances in Austin, Texas was not only an amazing chance for the band to demonstrate their grit, but it also helped to catapult their talent to international audiences. It was during one of these SXSW performances that they were noticed by the likes of David Fricke of Rolling Stone and Steve Lamacq of BBC Radio 6. The presence of the latter would prove to be a critical turning point in their career with Lamacq giving their first release, ‘Vine of the Soul’ a play on BBC Radio 6.

Their sound is the perfect embodiment of all their sensibilities combined, with a genuine focus and dedication coming through in their sound. It’s a unique combination of experimental musings with an electronic undertone, each song has an uncompromisingly distinctiveness to it- each listen feels as fresh as the first time. In keeping with their reputation for unrelenting energy, the band have just finished a stint at Canadian Music Week just last week- an impressive feat for any band, especially a relatively new one.

If you want to see a perfect combination of spontaneity and dedicated song-crafting combined, then check out their wonderfully trippy ‘Vine of the Soul’.