Lonely as the Wolf...

Aoife single is haunting & lush

If there’s an ever-so-subtle nod to David Lynch in the bassline of Aoife Wolf ’s new single then the video wears the influence on its sleeve.

The film accompaniment for A Ringing In The Ear, out next Friday, has a distinctly “if Twin Peaks was shot in Ireland” flavour – complete with Mummer masks and the band performing on a red-lit stage just like in the show’s Roadhouse. It’s dark and disturbing and fun, much like the cult TV series.

The song itself is an achingly downbeat psych-folk gem from the Co Offaly singer songwriter. That simple bassline becomes washed over, but never drowned out, by waves of lush chords, then Fender Rhodes (the vibiest of all keyboards), synth and even trombones. It all builds to a wonderful strangeness but never loses its sad quality.

Aoife explained: “Someone said to me recently that they enjoyed the ‘palpable sense of loneliness’ in my music, I was like, ‘eh...thanks?’ A Ringing in the Ear is quite literally about loneliness, something at the time I felt could only be drowned out and not really cured, like our old pal tinnitus.

“When we got the band together to record it we immediately thought it had a kind of a Julee Cruise feel to it. So the band played up to that, my mate Ben later added some Rhodes keyboard action and the sad sexy trombone piece that I had my heart set on. I thought the song was done but [Analogue Catalogue’s Julie Mclarnon] placed a monophonic synth in front of me with the instructions ‘I’m going to feed the kids, you write something’. We recorded those parts minutes later.

“I have a fascination with Mummers and masks in general so we got two headdresses made.

“This song always made me envision a sad kind of dancing, so my dance teacher Vasiliki choreographed a routine for us in the headdresses, which was challenging.”

A Ringing In The Ear is out next Friday

Aoife Wolf has new single