Alphastates
Encyclopedia
Alphastates were an Irish
electro band from Dublin. The band consisted of lead vocalist and guitarist Catherine Dowling, guitarist Gerry Horan, bass guitar
ist Stevie Kavanagh and drum
mer Graham Gilligan. Former member and drummer Mike O'Dowd departed in 2008.
Alphastates released one extended play
called Good Stuff (2003) and two albums: Made From Sand (2004) and Human Nature (2009). Human Nature was rerecorded before its release after the band expressed their unhappiness with the original record. Lead single "Champagne Glass" was a dance hit in New York
. During their existence they performed in the Phoenix Park
and on Other Voices, as well as at music festivals such as Oxegen
, Electric Picnic
, Indie-pendence
and the IMRO Showcase Tour.
Alphastates remained active until 2010 before being "pulled in different directions".
, Joy Division
, Billie Holiday
, Portishead, Nina Simone
, Tom Waits
and Sonic Youth
. Vocalist Catherine Dowling has been compared to both Beth Gibbons
and Shirley Manson
and called "a lady with the most evocative vocals in Irish music". Each member contributed to the songwriting process during the band's existence.
. As Babelfish they appeared on EmBraces, a 2003 double album of acoustic tracks featuring various Irish and international artists. As Alphastates they toured with The Beta Band
, Deus, Cat Power
, Mercury Rev
, Sinéad O'Connor
and Zero 7
. They performed at major European music festivals, including Electric Picnic
and Oxegen
in their native country. Their music has also featured in films, including one from Belgium
.
A July 2003 Hot Press
review of a live performance observed how Alphastates "manage to pull off a small triumph" with Dowling's vocals "still remain[ing] their most unique selling point, but they refuse to let themselves become dwarfed by the expanse of the space and even manage a stab at dry-ice-assisted dramatics". In December that year they released the Good Stuff EP, with Hot Press noting "the attention to detail. Every sound has been meticulously, lovingly crafted; every twist, turn, modulation and crescendo plotted with extreme precision, and, in places, to startling effect". The band's debut album, titled Made From Sand, was released in 2004. RTÉ
reviewer Ray Donoghue noted their "ability to incorporate electronic music seamlessly into a mix that will please most ears", while Hot Press said: "It's as sexy as fuck". The song Angel Kiss was a huge internet hit. At this time critics considered Alphastates "one of the most underrated bands on the Irish music scene" as the scene was not as interested in their electronic sound at this time, a contrast to when they released their second album. They performed on Oxegen
's Green Room stage in July 2004 and on December 11, 2004, Alphastates recorded a performance for the third series of Other Voices in Dingle
which was broadcast on RTÉ Two
early the following year. On September 4, 2004, the band performed at the sellout 02 In The Park event held in the Phoenix Park
.
The band performed during the IMRO Showcase Tour in Dublin on April 4, 2008. That year also saw the departure of their drummer Mike O'Dowd after the birth of a baby. They played at several music festivals such as that year's Indie-pendence
and Electric Picnic 2008
and their music featured on Hot Presss free 16-track Un-Laoised: Irish Acts At Electric Picnic 2008 CD.
After recording their second album Human Nature Alphastates were not happy and began working on it again from the beginning. During this process Dowling obtained a node
in her larynx
and subsequently lost her voice for a time. Glen Hansard
assisted by directing the band to his voice coach who restored the missing voice. The completed album was released in April 2009. entertainment.ie
s Jenny Mulligan gave Human Nature four out of five stars and said it showed the band could "delve further into the realm of danceable pop music [...] If only more Irish bands had this kind of range". Alan Jacques of the Limerick Independent described Human Nature as "one of the best albums of the year". Hot Press called it "an inventive respite from blog-standard guitar-driven formulaic rock". Human Nature was included in Joe Kavanagh's "Top Twenty Irish Albums Of 2009" compiled for The Irish Examiner USA. The band planned to release the record to markets in the UK and US. The singles "Champagne Glass", "Human Nature" and "You Talked I Can Tell" were released from the album. Lead single "Champagne Glass" attracted much interest from dancers in New York
and Arveene and Misk offered to remix it after hearing it.
Alphastates performed their final show at Whelan's
in Dublin on February 18, 2010. They later talked about their decision to split in an interview with Hot Press, saying "we're all being pulled in different directions now [...] We all need to express ourselves through our music and were always passionate about what we did. In the end, we didn't feel so passionate and felt it only fair and right to send the angel to bed".
Dowling was absorbed with taking care of her newly born daughter, although expressed interest in releasing a solo album in future. During the final months of the band's existence she had been heavily pregnant during performances. Horan contributed to numerous soundtracks. Kavanagh still plays music with The Rags.
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
electro band from Dublin. The band consisted of lead vocalist and guitarist Catherine Dowling, guitarist Gerry Horan, bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
ist Stevie Kavanagh and drum
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
mer Graham Gilligan. Former member and drummer Mike O'Dowd departed in 2008.
Alphastates released one extended play
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
called Good Stuff (2003) and two albums: Made From Sand (2004) and Human Nature (2009). Human Nature was rerecorded before its release after the band expressed their unhappiness with the original record. Lead single "Champagne Glass" was a dance hit in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. During their existence they performed in the Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...
and on Other Voices, as well as at music festivals such as Oxegen
Oxegen
Oxegen is an annual music festival in Ireland held since 2004, sponsored by Heineken. As of 2007, 2008, 2009, the festival has been cited as Ireland's biggest music festival. And by 2009, the festival is cited as the greenest festival, being a 100% carbon neutral event in Ireland. It was previously...
, Electric Picnic
Electric Picnic
The 2005 festival took place on Saturday 3 September and Sunday 4 September. It is best remembered for Arcade Fire's performance which came before their subsequent mainstream success...
, Indie-pendence
Indie-pendence
Indiependence is an annual Irish indie-rock music festival, that usually takes place at or near Mitchelstown in County Cork. Indiependence is one of the "little two" music festivals in Ireland, sharing many of its acts with Castlepalooza which is held on the same weekend in Tullamore, County Offaly...
and the IMRO Showcase Tour.
Alphastates remained active until 2010 before being "pulled in different directions".
Style
The band's style was described in such terms as "dark", "delicious" and "grand". Their influences included Édith PiafÉdith Piaf
Édith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...
, Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Portishead, Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
. Vocalist Catherine Dowling has been compared to both Beth Gibbons
Beth Gibbons
Beth Gibbons is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist for the iconic British band Portishead.-Early life:...
and Shirley Manson
Shirley Manson
Shirley Anne Manson is a Scottish recording artist and actress, best known internationally as the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh to the United States to record with Garbage but now lives and...
and called "a lady with the most evocative vocals in Irish music". Each member contributed to the songwriting process during the band's existence.
History
The band formed in 2001, beginning their existence as Babelfish. They changed their name to Alphastates in June 2003, with one of their first shows under that name occurring at that year's WitnnessWitnness
Witnness was an Irish music festival, sponsored by Guinness, which ran for four consecutive summers from 2000 to 2003. Originally it was held at Fairyhouse Racecourse in County Meath, but it was moved to Punchestown Racecourse in County Kildare for its final year...
. As Babelfish they appeared on EmBraces, a 2003 double album of acoustic tracks featuring various Irish and international artists. As Alphastates they toured with The Beta Band
The Beta Band
The Beta Band were a British musical group who received much critical acclaim and achieved cult status amongst avid followers of the underground and experimental music scene...
, Deus, Cat Power
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...
, Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev is an American alternative rock group, that formed in the late 1980s in Buffalo, New York. Original personnel were David Baker , Jonathan Donahue , Sean Mackowiak, a.k.a...
, Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
and Zero 7
Zero 7
Zero 7 is a British musical duo consisting of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. The group members began their musical careers as studio engineers and in 1997 formed the group Zero 7. Their debut album, Simple Things was released in 2001 and received critical acclaim...
. They performed at major European music festivals, including Electric Picnic
Electric Picnic
The 2005 festival took place on Saturday 3 September and Sunday 4 September. It is best remembered for Arcade Fire's performance which came before their subsequent mainstream success...
and Oxegen
Oxegen
Oxegen is an annual music festival in Ireland held since 2004, sponsored by Heineken. As of 2007, 2008, 2009, the festival has been cited as Ireland's biggest music festival. And by 2009, the festival is cited as the greenest festival, being a 100% carbon neutral event in Ireland. It was previously...
in their native country. Their music has also featured in films, including one from Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
A July 2003 Hot Press
Hot Press
Hot Press is a fortnightly music and political magazine based in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a circulation of 19,215 during 2007...
review of a live performance observed how Alphastates "manage to pull off a small triumph" with Dowling's vocals "still remain[ing] their most unique selling point, but they refuse to let themselves become dwarfed by the expanse of the space and even manage a stab at dry-ice-assisted dramatics". In December that year they released the Good Stuff EP, with Hot Press noting "the attention to detail. Every sound has been meticulously, lovingly crafted; every twist, turn, modulation and crescendo plotted with extreme precision, and, in places, to startling effect". The band's debut album, titled Made From Sand, was released in 2004. RTÉ
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
reviewer Ray Donoghue noted their "ability to incorporate electronic music seamlessly into a mix that will please most ears", while Hot Press said: "It's as sexy as fuck". The song Angel Kiss was a huge internet hit. At this time critics considered Alphastates "one of the most underrated bands on the Irish music scene" as the scene was not as interested in their electronic sound at this time, a contrast to when they released their second album. They performed on Oxegen
Oxegen
Oxegen is an annual music festival in Ireland held since 2004, sponsored by Heineken. As of 2007, 2008, 2009, the festival has been cited as Ireland's biggest music festival. And by 2009, the festival is cited as the greenest festival, being a 100% carbon neutral event in Ireland. It was previously...
's Green Room stage in July 2004 and on December 11, 2004, Alphastates recorded a performance for the third series of Other Voices in Dingle
Dingle
Dingle is a town in County Kerry, Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula, it sits on the Atlantic coast, about 49 kilometres southwest of Tralee and 71 kilometres northwest of Killarney....
which was broadcast on RTÉ Two
RTÉ Two
RTÉ Two is a free-to-air general entertainment channel operated by Irish state broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. RTÉ Two is available throughout the island of Ireland through digital terrestrial service Saorview, VHF and UHF bands, and is also available via satellite to Irish subscribers of...
early the following year. On September 4, 2004, the band performed at the sellout 02 In The Park event held in the Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...
.
The band performed during the IMRO Showcase Tour in Dublin on April 4, 2008. That year also saw the departure of their drummer Mike O'Dowd after the birth of a baby. They played at several music festivals such as that year's Indie-pendence
Indie-pendence
Indiependence is an annual Irish indie-rock music festival, that usually takes place at or near Mitchelstown in County Cork. Indiependence is one of the "little two" music festivals in Ireland, sharing many of its acts with Castlepalooza which is held on the same weekend in Tullamore, County Offaly...
and Electric Picnic 2008
Electric Picnic 2008
Electric Picnic 2008 was the fifth Electric Picnic festival to take place. The three-day event took place on the weekend of Friday–Sunday, 29–31 August at Stradbally in County Laois, Ireland...
and their music featured on Hot Presss free 16-track Un-Laoised: Irish Acts At Electric Picnic 2008 CD.
After recording their second album Human Nature Alphastates were not happy and began working on it again from the beginning. During this process Dowling obtained a node
Nodule (medicine)
For use of the term nodule in dermatology, see Nodule In medicine, a nodule refers to a relatively hard, roughly spherical abnormal structure....
in her larynx
Larynx
The larynx , commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the neck of amphibians, reptiles and mammals involved in breathing, sound production, and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. It manipulates pitch and volume...
and subsequently lost her voice for a time. Glen Hansard
Glen Hansard
Glen Hansard is the Academy Award–winning principal songwriter and vocalist/guitarist for Irish group The Frames and one half of folk rock duo, The Swell Season...
assisted by directing the band to his voice coach who restored the missing voice. The completed album was released in April 2009. entertainment.ie
Entertainment.ie
entertainment.ie is a Dublin-based Irish website which provides extensive cinema, TV, live music, theatre, comedy, exhibition and festival listings for free, as well as celebrity gossip, music and movie news, movie and DVD reviews, CD reviews and up-to-date lottery results.The site was developed in...
s Jenny Mulligan gave Human Nature four out of five stars and said it showed the band could "delve further into the realm of danceable pop music [...] If only more Irish bands had this kind of range". Alan Jacques of the Limerick Independent described Human Nature as "one of the best albums of the year". Hot Press called it "an inventive respite from blog-standard guitar-driven formulaic rock". Human Nature was included in Joe Kavanagh's "Top Twenty Irish Albums Of 2009" compiled for The Irish Examiner USA. The band planned to release the record to markets in the UK and US. The singles "Champagne Glass", "Human Nature" and "You Talked I Can Tell" were released from the album. Lead single "Champagne Glass" attracted much interest from dancers in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Arveene and Misk offered to remix it after hearing it.
Alphastates performed their final show at Whelan's
Whelan's (music venue)
Whelan's is a small music venue in Dublin, Ireland, located on Wexford Street.The venue and pub was initially started by Gary Whelan and Ian Keith in 1989 and ten years later was bought by Frank Gleeson. Local musicians and actors frequent it...
in Dublin on February 18, 2010. They later talked about their decision to split in an interview with Hot Press, saying "we're all being pulled in different directions now [...] We all need to express ourselves through our music and were always passionate about what we did. In the end, we didn't feel so passionate and felt it only fair and right to send the angel to bed".
Dowling was absorbed with taking care of her newly born daughter, although expressed interest in releasing a solo album in future. During the final months of the band's existence she had been heavily pregnant during performances. Horan contributed to numerous soundtracks. Kavanagh still plays music with The Rags.
Members
- Catherine Dowling — VocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, keysKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments... - Gerry Horan — Guitar, keys
- Stevie Kavanagh — Bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, keys - Graham Gilligan — DrumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
Discography
Alphastates released one extended play and two albums.- Good Stuff EP (2003)
- Made From Sand (2004)
- Human Nature (2009)