SSTN interview

SSTN has been highlighting the diverse and exciting talents of Dublin, and Ireland as a whole, through it's free monthly gigs and excellent blog. Each gig is an audio-visual feast, and has featured the likes of Gland & Conduit, Cárthach Ó Nuanáin, Fran Hartnett, Vince Mack Mahon, PushMoveClick and Scurvy Lass. Barely a year old, these guys have been pushing Irish electronic music forward big time. We sat them down, took off their shoes and started quizzing them. Answers popped up as the footrubs progressed.

SSTN interview

Can you tell us how SSTN came about? Do you feel it was out of necessity or was it a ‘let’s see where this goes’ approach?

The name Second Square to None started as a personal web/ music project aligned with a site called youhavereturned.com. I was going to put up a minute of audio or music I’d made that day, every day, but then reality got in the way…and I had no time to do so. Around the same time myself and Conor Hinfey (Kachanski) had been talking about putting on ambient gigs - Pole’s Petit Campus live set was being listened to a lot and had a big influence I think. At the time harder electronic sounds were more than catered for by !kaboogie, Redrum, and Stasis, but since Lazybird stopped being a regular thing there was no outlet for more abstract electronic music (that we were aware of, at least). From there the idea grew to putting on gigs really early on Sunday afternoons, giving prominence to visual projections and making limited CD-r releases with hand made artwork of sets played at the gigs. So a mixture of necessity and let’s-see-where-this-goes!


SSTN seems to strike a good balance between visual art and music, which is something quite rare in the city. Most crews are either art collectives or music promoters, with clearly defined roles (bar the likes of the excellent A4 Sounds and Nouveau Vadge). Do you find it difficult to present music and art concurrently during a show, ie live music with live visuals? Do you try and get complementary acts combining or do you prefer a bit of juxtaposition?

As much as possible we try to match visual artists / VJ’s with music acts, but it’s something we’re really only getting the hang of now. The blog, which is handled by Chris Flynn (Euphiophone), is where most of the visual side of things is in evidence at the moment, but we have had artists painting at our gigs, and for future events we hope to be able to pair up video and music artists a couple of months in advance to make truly cohesive audio-visual sets. We are all involved with making visual art / motion graphics, and interested by the relationship between sound and visuals, so it’s something that will improve greatly at our gigs as time goes by. If any people interested in making visuals are reading this, get in touch, send us some stuff!


For a crew that’s been putting on gigs for barely a year, the amount of material that’s been produced under the SSTN banner, be it livesets, artwork or otherwise is fairly bloody impressive. There’s a really tight aesthetic to it as an archive of work too. You guys have been responsible for getting a lot of talented people out there doing their thing, has this always been an objective?

Absolutely. We know a lot of people making music, art, visuals etc., and wanted to involve them in the events and design of fliers, CD covers and the like. Quite a few producers who normally make dancefloor material also make quieter/ weirder stuff they couldn’t really play in a club, and we give them an opportunity to play that stuff at our events. We record all the sets and with permission post them on our blog, with artwork by different people to accompany them. The idea is to give the different people involved more exposure, and together as a body of work highlight the diversity and similarities between them.


There’s been everything from breakcore and noise to lush electronica and acoustic instrumentation at SSTN gigs. Would it be possible to describe the music/art policy of Second Square to None or would you prefer operating without one?

Initially we had planned SSTN to be an ambient / downbeat sort of thing, but there has been quite a wide range of styles played. I think all the acts who have played for us have to some extent tuned their sets to their own idea of what would be appropriate - we’re not trying to be a day time night club, but dancing is in no way frowned upon! There’s no clearly defined policy really - it’s more about how the music and art is absorbed on a Sunday afternoon, when heads are generally fuzzy. Usually if people do play harder stuff it’s in a dubbier / spacier context to usual, and even the most extreme noise has a hypnotic effect that suits the buzz of SSTN!


How do you feel about the state of the Irish scene at the moment?

In terms of artist output, optimistic. In terms of whether or not talented people are going to stick around this country much longer, not so sure! That said, I don’t think all the art spaces popping up could have unless the recession had come along. We started off in The Joy Gallery for example, and there seem to be plenty of other not-for-profit places around. Another possible upside to the recession is that a lot of talented people are now on the dole, and have nothing better to do than make art or music or whatever, so they have time to hone their skills! New labels are starting which is great - people seem to be doing stuff for the love of it, which is a more honest approach than a profit-motivated one. Personally I’m excited about what the next year holds for the Irish scene.


The SSTN gig at Filmbase as part of DEAF 2009 was one of the highlights of the festival for me and was a great summation of what you guys have achieved in barely a year. What’s up the SSTN sleeves for 2010?

We’ve got plenty of plans: a label is forthcoming; the blog will have a lot more content - photo, music, art projects and series; special one-off gigs etc. I don’t want to go into too much detail as a lot of these plans are still in Nebulous Talk State. Probably most importantly for ourselves is bringing in new people to the SSTN team so that organising everything won’t be so all-consuming!

Keep an eye on http://www.secondsquaretonone.com/ for info on upcoming gigs, as well as the delicious Monday Livesets series, which features live recordings from SSTN gigs over the last twelve months.

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