Cathal Coughlan passed away on 18 May 2022, so to mark his third anniversary I’m devoting Episode 50 to his 2021 album, Song of Co-Aklan.

It was the sixth album under Cathal’s own name, it was released on 31 March 2021 on Dimple Discs and this interview with Cathal was first broadcast on Songs to Learn and Sing on 103.2 Dublin City FM on 07 April 2021.

Song of Co-Aklan was Cathal’s first album in 11 years, and I suppose it’s fair to say that its release was heralded by high expectations, not least in light of the long gap since 2010’s Rancho Tetrahedron and the buzz around Microdisney’s reunion shows a couple of years earlier.

I certainly had very high expectations for the album. I wasn’t disappointed, it’s a great album which in time will undoubtedly be regarded as one of Cathal’s finest.   

In our chat Cathal discussed writing Song of Co-Aklan and he introduced a couple of songs from it. We talked about what Microdisney’s reunion meant to him; Telefís, his collaboration (as then unreleased) with Jacknife Lee; the documentaries of Adam Curtis; and we also talked about Commandment 6 of Cathal’s “Ten Commandments of Gig”: Don’t play in car showrooms. That’s very good advice for any young band out there!

Prefacing his “Ten Commandments of Gig”, which was published in the Hope Promotions book Great Gig Memories in 2020, Cathal wrote:

“I have gigged. Sometimes very little, sometimes way too much. I began doing this as a confrontation with the general public, some 40 years ago. I hope you won’t mind then, if I put forth my lifetime findings, The Ten Commandments of Gig.”

It’s hard to believe now reading those words back that we’ll never see Cathal up on a stage again. So, in tribute to Cathal I just want to mark the occasion of his third anniversary with this episode. 

I’ve no doubt that there are loads of fans of Microdisney and The Fatima Mansions who have never listened to Cathal’s solo albums. You really are missing out. There’s loads of amazing songs to go back and discover, I even devoted Episode 11 of this podcast to my own personal favourite of Cathal’s solo output, his second album, Black River Falls. I suspect that in time Song of Co-Aklan may just overtake Black River Falls in my affections.

For Further Listening:

Song of Co-Aklan is available on Spotify.

For further Reading:

My feature for the Irish Examiner’s B-Side the Leeside series…

My feature for the Sunday Independent following Cathal’s passing…