'Somewhere In Ireland’ - An Ambitious Collaboration Showcasing Limerick’s Creative Scene
Artists, musicians, videographers and more are assembled in this ambitious video showcase, curated by Brownsauce. ‘Somewhere In Ireland’ is an expansive collaboration, confidently confirming the depth of talent in Limerick’s creative scene.
The collaborative creative scene Limerick continues to flourish. 'Somewhere In Ireland' is a conceptual music video, drawing together talented musicians, videographers and artists. Director Jack O’Flynn, AKA Brownsauce, is known for his impeccably on point satire Facebook page of Humans of the Sesh, founded with Grandfeen, using illustrations and memes to comment on Irish party culture. His latest work is something we can only appreciate here at FAC; a joint effort bringing together creatives from many fields, through several mediums, using the power of collaboration to produce an engaging and inspiring piece of art, even greater than the sum of its already great parts.
“I had no location, money or encouragement to start such a large project yet here we are, months later releasing the first part of Somewhere in Ireland.”
With this fresh and ambitious project, Brownsauce demonstrates not only his own wide range of talents, but also the talents of the team of musicians, graphic artists, and videographers he impressively assembled. ‘Somewhere In Ireland’ features 5 different music videos linked by skits and story, following 9 artists (‘the lads’) as they engage and disengage with the daily working life. We watch them dress the part, act the maggot and die a little inside as they battle with the monotonous factory environment. Combining short film, music videos, animation and hip-hop, the project has a tangible and alert energy that is often only generated when many artforms are successfully merged.
The project was kickstarted by Brownsauce’s personal drive and initiative to place the active creative scene in Limerick on a platform for the whole country to see:
“I had no location, money or encouragement to start such a large project yet here we are, months later releasing the first part of Somewhere in Ireland.
Living in Limerick's vibrant bizarre mishmash community of multidisciplinary artists and musicians made me want to create a single project that could show everybody's work - from fine art sculpture to print, photography, painting, music, videography and animation.
This project in its simplest sense is a showcase of young Irish talent from genuine people with genuine stories.“
The skits and stories featuring these artists play out in and around a warehouse. The characters show us what it's like to toil away out of necessity in an unrewarding job. The emotional energy will resonate with many artists around Ireland, contrasting the double lives of creatives by placing vibrant music videos against the backdrop of comical mundane work life, a situation no doubt experienced by creative youths struggling in the boom-bust economic landscape.
Each video in ‘Somewhere in Ireland’ visually reflects the nature and personality of the artist and song, yet the work does not feel disjointed. The artists express themselves and combine to create a sense of something greater. Citrus, a rapper involved in the project told us:
“All us Limerick heads come from different backgrounds, but because it’s such a small community in the grand scheme of things, we just a have this unsaid mutual understanding with each other. I guess you can hear it ingrained in our music because we've definitely found a distinctive Limerick sound.”
The project kicks off with Hazey performing his Limerick cult classic ‘What’s That’. The video shows off his frenetic overpowering energy with palpitating pulsating strobe lights. The lighting was programmed specifically for the video by Luke Prendergast and Walter Need. Brownsauce overlaid the shots with layers of staggered animation, filling the darkness created by the lighting to give Haze a ghostly effect.
“If Ireland is once again to be put on the map as a hub for talent, I believe it will be because of the things that make us different from the rest of the wider music world” - Brownsauce
The next track, featuring Ganiyu TLG, Chili & Huva with ‘Jolly’, cuts to outside of the warehouse, with lads who are completely dismissive of taking part in the work happening there. A hard-hitting track, Jolly reflects this ‘braggadocious’ 90s pose boom-bap style and shows us another side to the ever-growing multicultural rap scene in Ireland.
Video 2 - Jolly
On the third track is Aswell, who an aggressive but melancholy approach to his music. With overwhelming trippy blue projections casting rain onto his small workspace, a visual experience just like strolling into work trying to make sense of the monotonous mundanity, still twisted from last night’s bender. The contrast between this tune and the previous is striking, but it highlights the assortment of styles presented side by side in the project.
“The one thing that links us together is our differences, which allow Irish artists the unique opportunity to collaborate with one another in ways that perhaps artists in a bigger country would never be forced to consider.” - Brownsauce
Track four takes place in the dreams of the foreman played by Andrew Hendy of TPM. providing a perspective from the mind of the boss. The song ‘Hindsight’ performed by Citrus, Strange Boy Nature and Hazey, has deep drowning lyrics and the tone reflects on loss and their everyday struggles. We’re led to wonder if perhaps the foreman is more sympathetic to the lads than he first seems. The video also features over 2000 individual frames of exceptional animation by Brownsauce, making it one of the most visually striking parts of the project.
Watching the various artists cooperate so smoothly, it is incredible to think that many would only have known each other in passing very recently. The whole project feels as though it was years in the making, yet the participants have only been working on it for a few months. The sound and energy appear developed and fully formed, seemingly out of nowhere. As Citrus said:
“It’s mad because Limerick has had such a strong underground scene for a couple of years, and it was like something just snapped and everyone realised "oh wait we should be working together". Within a few weeks we're involved in ‘Somewhere In Ireland’.”
At FAC, we believe that collaboration is win-win. We all need other creative projects to bounce off, new ideas to discuss, and fresh perspectives to see. The new age hippies are right in this context; the more we put out good energy, the more the we receive that good energy. Ronán Falvey, a videographer, described the benefits and opportunity offered by working on such a project:
“During the lead up to shooting it was great to bounce ideas I had off other people involved and working with them to shape what was to come.
When a group comes together like this everyone has roles that they specialise in, working with a pool of people with so much creative energy was great motivation to really try and produce something different.”
Charles Hendy, the other half of the Hendy brothers who make up TPM, expressed how important it is to tap into this collaborative power, not only for the good of the individual artists, but for the good of the Irish creative scene:
“Ireland is full to the brim of young like-minded people who are energetic and passionate about creating. When joined together that energy only multiplies.
It’s important to have projects like this because it shows how much is going on in the rest of the country when it seems you mostly hear about Dublin based projects. Places like Limerick are full of raw energy.”
Or, as Brownsauce puts it:
“We have only scratched the surface, but one of the main goals was to put guys in the same project that would never be seen together in another country.
If we want to make a true scene, we need to collaborate and do things like this project that would never be done elsewhere.”
Finally, ‘Somewhere In Ireland’ ends with a performance from TPM, who sing the classic Irish ballad ‘The Rocks Of Bawn’, for which the video will be released in the coming weeks. You might think this seems out of place when compared with the previous parts, but considered in the context of the other songs, it links the music of today with the music of yesterday, to show our contemporary sound is coherent with our heritage. This morose song’s lyrics tell a story, just like the rap before it, of the struggle and plight of working in Ireland.
The ambitious collaborative project comes full circle, connecting our traditional past with the trends of the present and ending up ‘Somewhere In Ireland’.
Follow the director Brownsauce and get the artists below:
Enjoy the tunes and their unreal videos while you keep in mind the amount of collaboration involved in producing this project. Class.
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