{"id":67542,"date":"2021-02-08T22:06:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T22:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=67542"},"modified":"2021-02-11T15:44:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T15:44:43","slug":"the-old-mans-back-again-fatima-mansions-cathal-coughlan-on-politics-the-pandemic-and-song-of-co-aklan-his-first-album-in-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2021\/02\/the-old-mans-back-again-fatima-mansions-cathal-coughlan-on-politics-the-pandemic-and-song-of-co-aklan-his-first-album-in-10-years\/","title":{"rendered":"THE OLD MAN’S BACK AGAIN – Fatima Mansions’ Cathal Coughlan On Politics, The Pandemic And ‘Song Of Co-Aklan’ His First Album In 10 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carving out a reputation as one of indie’s most challenging and erudite lyricists with\u00a0Microdisney\u00a0<\/strong>in the ’80s,\u00a0Cathal Coughlan went and <\/strong>did it all again in the ’90s with post-punk five-piece Fatima Mansions.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When that band collapsed amid a contractual dispute which nearly sent him over the edge, he recovered to forge a solo career comprising five critically acclaimed albums.<\/h4>\n

Now a decade after his last release Rancho Tetrahedron<\/strong><\/em>, he’s back with a new album\u00a0Song of Co-Aklan<\/strong><\/em>, preceded by a single of the same name.<\/p>\n

Here Coughlan tells Matt Catchpole<\/strong> how his abhorrence of Brexit and Trumpism fuelled his writing on the new record and why he’s as excited by this release as any in his 40-year career.<\/p>\n

\"Song
Sleeve art for Song of Co-Aklan by Cristabel Christo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like much of Coughlan’s previous work, the title track off the album is a complex web of acerbic wordplay and contemporary and historical allusions.<\/p>\n

Sporting a big friendly chorus, delivered with his much admired croon, it’s the archetypal iron fist in a velvet glove.<\/p>\n

It addresses the pandemic, but not directly, seemingly disparate elements pulled together in the persona of a character being bombarded both literally and metaphorically.<\/p>\n

“It’s a \u2018parallax view\u2019 of scenes from the existing predicament, and how we may have got here \u2013 from the Cold War dirty-tricks playground that was the Irish Troubles (in part), to Pan Am flight 103, to Syria in the mid-2010\u2019s,” Coughlan explains.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m trying not to dispense slogans, or preach anything. I see myself as a parasite on world events, not an influencer.”<\/p>\n

Describing the song as the “most collagey of anything I’ve done”, Coughlan says the lyrical approach came after a friend sent him some of his old verse, run through several waves of auto-translation and then back into English.<\/p>\n