Joe Chester
[5] From 1990, he worked as an engineer and producer in Dublin's Elektra and then Sun Studios, Joe Chester recorded many of the emerging bands of the vibrant and celebrated underground indie scene of the time, including Sack, Sunbear, The Plague Monkeys, Turn, Nina Hynes, Doctor Millar, Future Kings Of Spain, Ten Speed Racer, Bobby Pulls A Wilson in addition to many others.
While on tour in America, he joined Ten Speed Racer and, on returning to Ireland, went into Sun Studios in Dublin to begin recordings for Eskimo Beach Boy,[10] their first album.
The band decided to quit Dublin and moved en masse to a large farmhouse in rural Wexford where they set up a rehearsal and recording studio and where they would live together for the next three years.
After a period of writing, the band decamped to the famed Livingston Studios in London to record the EP Girls & Magazines,[13] with Chester producing.
The band took the decision to record with no producer, but Darren Alison (Spiritualized, My Bloody Valentine, The Divine Comedy) was drafted in to mix.
Shortly after the release of 10SR, Chester left the band but continued to live at the farmhouse in Wexford to commence work on a solo album, which would become A Murder Of Crows.
In 2004, looking for feedback, he sent a rough, unmixed version of the album to Tom Dunne, who had been a champion of the Chester-penned Ten Speed Racer single, "Don't Go Out".
"[15] Moving back to Dublin, Chester set about finishing the album, with Bryan McMahon of Future Kings Of Spain playing drums and Gemma Hayes providing vocals on "A Safe Place to Hide".
[16] Chester signed a licensing deal to release the album with BARP,[17] a label set up by Damien Rice's manager, Bernadette Barrett.
In 2017, Bohemia Records released A Murder of Crows (Special Edition)[22] which features the original album plus live tracks and demos as well as liner notes by Tom Dunne, Tony Clayton-Lea and Dan Hegarty.
[26] The reviews were positive, with Totally Dublin saying, "Connected to the thumping indie-pop heart at the centre of this opus are veins of bittersweet twists, electro influenced turns, and gratifying avenues.
"[27] Adrienne Murphy, writing in Hot Press magazine, declared it a humdinger, comparing it to John Lennon and Neil Young.
There are lots of goodies on The Tiny Pieces Left Behind, but the best for me has to be the beautiful Fluorescent Light, which I listened to compulsively 15 times in a row until I'd learned it by heart.
This was to be a more long-lasting partnership, however, as, after the launch of The Tiny Pieces Left Behind, Chester embarked on an extended period as Gemma's live guitarist, first as part of a band including Binzer Brennan and Karl Odlum and then as a duo.
Although they have never performed together live since, they were reunited in 2015 for promotional appearances in Paris and in Dublin, including RTE's The Works,[29] TG4 Imeall, Today FM's Ian Dempsey show,[30] RTL 2[31] and La Bruit de Graviers.
In 2010, Mike Scott of The Waterboys recruited Chester into a new extended lineup of the band he was putting together for a ground-breaking run of shows at Dublin's Abbey Theatre called An Appointment With Mr. Yeats.
In reviewing the show, RTE said that to have an audience of all ages and different nationalities hanging on every line and chord of almost entirely new material was some achievement - "Scott and his band could've played the whole set twice and still had people wanting more.
While touring with Gemma Hayes and The Waterboys, Chester had begun experimenting with a fresh approach to his songwriting, using material from short stories he had written as lyrics for new songs.
- Hotpress[39] "Several tracks (notably Acid Rain, Foreign Correspondent, and Heart of Stone) bear his hallmark attention to observant detail.
The band has had a fluid lineup ever since (including members of Ten Speed Racer, Future Kings Of Spain and Mexican Pets),all built around the songs and voice of Brian Brannigan.
However, in 2014, after a show paying tribute to Mark E Smith of The Fall, Chester joined the band as full-time guitarist (having had a long association with the band, producing every album) This lineup (featuring Anton Hegarty on bass and Julie Bienvenu on drums) went on to make the albums Last of the Analogue Age and The D They Put Between the R & L, which featured the much-loved single "Long Balconies".
In January 2017, Chester returned after a six-year gap with a new single, "Juliette Walking in the Rain", with an accompanying video filmed on the Col de Turini on the French/Italian border.
Spy Wednesday bristles with lyrics worthy of Elvis Costello and on Like a Rose Tattoo, he sings about "the national razor," a decidedly sinister sounding implement."
"[45] The record received rave reviews with Hot Press describing it as, "genuinely breathtaking, truly transcendent, "melody incarnate, brimming with chiming guitar chords and wistful lyrics," The Sunday Business Post, "The Easter Vigil is his most profound and moving work yet.
"- RTE,[46] The devil may indeed always lurk amidst the details, but it takes the confidence of a master to allow the magic to flourish deep inside the quiet.
In late 2017, Chester travelled to Memphis, Tennessee, to begin recordings for what would become the double album, Jupiter's Wife[48] at Sam Phillips's legendary birthplace of rock and roll, Sun Studio.
[52] RTE's review simply stated that Chester now belonged in the rarified territory occupied by the likes of Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens.
The film (shot live but with no audience present) opened with Chester's arrangement of "O'Farrell's Slip Jig" on classical guitar before performances of songs from all of his six albums, beginning with "A Murder Of Crows" and finishing with "Hilton & Michael" from Jupiter's Wife.
In early 2022, he announced on social media that his latest project, on which he had been working for the previous two years, was to be an instrumental suite for classical guitar and strings, named Lucia, inspired by the life of Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce, a talented dancer who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and subsequently spent 47 years in institutions until her death in an English asylum in 1982.
