This week we feature Dublin based artist, Niamh de Barra, formerly known as Scurvy Lass. Niamh is a singular talent, using layers of manipulated vocals and cello to create haunting songs that never fail to leave an impression.
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| Photo by Aoife de Búrca |
Tell us a little about your musical background.
I've been playing the piano since I was quite young, was in a choir from the age of eight and taught myself the guitar when I was fourteen for the whole grungy riot grrrl thing. I studied music in Maynooth, and started playing the cello in my last year of college, to have something a bit more portable than a piano. That's the "traditional" background anyway.
I was in an improv band, John Mary Trilogy, for many years, and that, along with the choir I was in as a kid, was the greatest influence on my eeeehhhh development as a musician. That idea of losing yourself in what you're playing, surfacing after a few hours with a mixture of "what happened?" and "it can't have been bad if it feels so good". It was great to be in a band that just jams, very liberating after years in college of practicing the same pieces ad nauseam (not that there isn't scope for expression in that type of music-making, it's just that it's a bit easier and less scary because the pieces you're playing have already been "endorsed" for years. It's not really your music, you're not laying yourself bare to such an extent), just letting go. Yknow??
