Episode 35
This Is
by The Tycho Brahe
This Is (Konstantin Records, 2002). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Episode Notes
Episode 35 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on This Is by The Tycho Brahe released in 2002 on Konstantin Records.
Carol Keogh joins me to chat about The Tycho Brahe, the band herself, Donal O'Mahony and Diarmuid MacDiarmada formed in 2002. This Is, their debut album was released in 2002 and Love Life, its follow-up was released in 2003. We also chat about Carol’s varied musical guises since The Tycho Brahe - she's written and performed with Autamata and The Natural History Museum as well as releasing music under her own name and collaborating with loads of other artists. We talk about her most recent work as The WICC and much, much more.
This Is (Konstantin Records, 2002) & Love Life (Konstantin Records, 2003). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Prior to The Tycho Brahe Carol and Donal had been in The Plague Monkeys from about the mid 90s to 1999. In The Plague Monkeys they were accompanied by bandmates Barry Roden and Thomas Haugh.
Thomas has featured on the podcast previously – on Bonus Episode No. 1 – The Restoration of Michael O’Shea’s Mo Chara. Thomas is the person who actually restored Michael’s old instrument and he even treated us to a short performance on Michael’s Mo Chara in that bonus episode.
The Plague Monkeys released two albums and a couple of EPs. Prior to The Plague Monkeys Carol, Donal and Diarmuid had been in short-lived The Low Babies.
The Tycho Brahe: Donal O’Mahony, Carol Keogh and Diarmuid MacDiarmada
The Tycho Brahe were formed in early 2002 and eventually went their separate ways in late 2004. The were together for just over two and a half years. In that time I saw them play live loads of times in Dublin. I definitely saw them share stages with Jape, The Jimmy Cake, Joe Chester, David Kitt and I’ve a vague recollection of them supporting The Go-Betweens at the ambassador back in 2003 – but maybe I dreamt that one.
In those two and a half years The Tycho Brahe released two albums. This Is (2002) was described by the BBC as, “a self assured, beautiful and understated album.”
The reviewer went on to write, “I only hope that their success is huge but doesn't stop them from making such fantastic music in the future.”
They followed This Is with Love Life (2003), a mammoth double album. At the time Love Life was proclaimed by the band as the first ever double studio album by any Irish band. Now I’m not sure if that’s something we can verify but let’s go with it.
During and after The Tychos Carol was a member of Autamata. In 2014 Carol released the first album under her own name – Carol Keogh and the City Fathers – Mongrel City. In 2016 as The Natural History Museum – Carol and producer/composer Dunk Murphy released Attenborough. A few years ago Carol – under the name The WICC, released the brilliant The Wolf Chronicles (Part 1).
More recently she has contributed the Bring Your Own Hammer musical project. A project in which historians and composers collaborate to create new and original song cycles based on historical sources.
A few months ago Carol started a newsletter on Substack titled: Diary of a Fifty-something First-time Buyer. It’s been an essential read. Carol’s ruminations on the Arts in Ireland, the role of the Artist in society, the class system in Ireland and its influence on the Arts, remuneration for Artists and more have been absolutely fascinating and thoroughly thought provoking.
For Further Listening/Reading:
To Here Knows When column in The Goo on This Is…
by Paul McDermott
The Goo - Issue 20 (Jan-Feb 2024)
Details of Bring Your Own Hammer (the music and history project) are here. ‘A Pair of Packed Valises (before the Dunbrody), 1849’ can be purchased on Bandcamp.
Wolf - The Wolf Chronicles (part one) is Carol’s most recent album, recorded under the name TheWICC, it’s available to purchase on Bandcamp. An accompanying Flipbook is available here.
In the episode I mention Carol’s brilliant Substack Diary of a Fifty-something First-time Buyer. Subscribe to it here.