A small house in a small village for a small label: The Nyahh Records headquarters in Drumnadubber, North West Ireland
Photo: Nyahh Records
You run the small music label Nyahh Records in a remote corner of northwest Ireland. What is the meaning of “Nyahh”?
The word “nyahh” is Irish and describes the “soul” of a vocal performance. It’s something you either have or you don’t: an intense, emotional approach to the music. It is in the tradition of Sean Nós singing: a cappella, with long, richly decorated musical phrases.
The location of the label is also unusual. County Leitrim is not typically associated with underground music.
My partner Natalia Beylis and I moved here in 2006. Basically we just wanted to get out of the city. Dublin wasn’t absurdly expensive yet, but you could already tell there was a certain change. We just wanted to live differently, with more space, more time and less costs. Since then we have played in different bands and have been very creative. The surroundings gave us a lot of ideas that we wouldn’t have had in the city. In order to release this material, I founded the label two or three years ago.
Interview
Nyahh Records
The musician Willie Stewart, born in 1979, grew up in a restaurant and has been active in various musical and cultural projects for decades. He runs the tiny music label Nyahh Records from the tiny town of Drumnadubber in a remote corner of northwest Ireland.
What is your relationship with Dublin, Ireland’s only major city?
I grew up there and started organizing concerts and playing in bands at an early age. I also founded a fanzine in the mid-90s. Dublin was really exciting back then. And everything was cheaper. You could afford your own apartment from the support and devote your time to music. But now 40 percent of young working people live with their parents. That doesn’t sound particularly fun and doesn’t make it easy to make music. The city, but also Ireland in general, has completely changed. At first, people thought everything would be great with all the tech companies locating here. But now Google employees and so on are driving up rents and pushing people out of their neighborhoods. So I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Dublin. The city is still pretty dingy, but I don’t find it exciting anymore.
So are there more people like you leaving the city? And do you notice this in cultural life?
Many people my age, i.e. in their mid-forties, no longer live there, but in the country or just outside of it. But there is an active underground scene in Dublin and a few non-commercial spaces and bands, DJs, producers trying to create an alternative to the lame, boring crap that prevails. Hats off to them because it’s much more difficult today than it was in my time. But the niche is so small that you really need people who know what’s going on to find these places. Otherwise, all you see of the city is the Guinness brewery.
You release radically different music on your label. They don’t care about anything in particular Genre, publish both traditional music and avant-garde sound experiments. What is the connecting element that holds everything together?
Probably me. (laughs) It’s just music that I find interesting. But beyond that, I think that all of the releases have a certain rawness and directness in common. And the drones (long rather low tones, editor’s note) combine Irish with oriental music, very old music and the avant-garde.
What connects you to traditional music?
As a young person I skated and mostly listened to the Beastie Boys and punk. All very American. I discovered traditional music relatively late, when I moved to Leitrim. My preferences are also rather selective. I mainly like sean nos singing (traditional singing without musical accompaniment, ed.) and pieces for a solo instrument, so no ensemble music from this area.
Traditional elements can also be found in One Leg One Eye, the solo project of Ian Lynch, a member of the internationally very successful band Lankum.
I’ve known Ian for a long time and One Leg One Eye, in my opinion, combines all the music Ian has ever heard: punk, metal, noise and Irish street ballads. Is it folk? Is it black metal? Is it drone? It’s all of it!
Speaking of drones: There’s a lot being written about it at the moment. What do you think is the appeal of this music?
I believe these sounds are reminiscent of what we hear in the womb. It is the sound of the earth. Drones are also universal and are a part of very old music worldwide: from Asia to the Middle East and Europe to North America. Drones are simply a natural sound that intuitively appeals to many people.
One album that stands out in the label’s catalog is the best-seller “I am Kurdish” by Mohammad Syfkhan. How did the collaboration with the trained surgical nurse, who came to Ireland from Syria as a refugee, come about?
I have always been a fan of Middle Eastern and North African music. I met Mohammad when I was in charge of the sound system at an international cultural event in the area. He came up to me with his bouzouki and simply asked where he could connect his amplifier cable. I was a bit surprised because there wasn’t actually any live music planned. We were able to plug in his instrument and he just started playing. It was a beautiful moment because everyone immediately got excited and started dancing. We exchanged numbers and I arranged for him to perform at parties. Then the opportunity to record arose – and after a few days of rehearsals with two musicians from here, we recorded the album. I wouldn’t have expected the great success the record had, but I’m really pleased about it. It is probably also due to Mohammad’s personal history.
What I’ve always wondered: Why is there so much solidarity in Ireland with Palestine but so little with the Kurdish cause? When it comes to the oppression of their language and culture, Kurds have similar historical experiences to people in Ireland.
There is simply a knowledge gap. The history of Kurdistan is also so complex, and there is no place clearly designated as Kurdistan. That’s probably why it’s less noticeable. And Palestine has always been a big topic in the media, which it is now due to the current situation.
A few recommendations
Nyahh Records releases are available to stream and purchase via Bandcamp. Particularly recommended are:
»Whose Woods these are« von Natalia Beylis and Eimer Reidy. Quiet minimal music for cello and piano or organ that makes the forest tangible as a utopia of the commons.
»Under the island: Experimental Music in Ireland 1960–1994”. A collection of experimental music with an often playful character, compiled with a great deal of research effort.
“Hell Bank Note” by Burning Love Jumpsuit. Hyperactive funk, played like early punk, i.e. at the simplest technical level. In between there is noise and samples from trash films.
»A Collection of Songs in the Traditional & Sean-nós Style«. Music from the west of Ireland that doesn’t fit the banjo and accordion cliché. Intimate solo recordings of fascinating songs and ballads, some of which sound almost oriental.
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