Limited Edition Prints For Sale!!!!!
At last, the beautiful poster for ‘A Letter to Mina’ designed by Gav Beattie from Tiny Little Horse printing.
A2 prints are available to buy.
Pre-order by sending us a message on here or emailing paperdollsperformance@gmail.com
Hallowe’en Performances! A Letter To Mina.
PaperDolls present A Letter to Mina 2012
Dates: 26th October – 28th October
Tickets: €16.00
Show time: 8.30pm
Duration: 60 Minutes.
PaperDolls meet Bram Stoker in a Victorian inspired exploration of the female and the monstrous. Featuring performance and writing by Alabaster DePlume, an original score by the darlings of Dublin’s alternative music scene Estel, and a diverse display of talent and skill from Dublin’s rogue cabaret and subterranean theatre culture, PaperDolls performance company are creating a Gothic theatrical playground of ideas and physicality, for three nights only in the ever malleable D-Light Studios.
An engrossing visual feast, this site specific performance incorporates new writing, original music, aerial, circus skills, suspension and theatrics. A Letter to Mina is an immersive and site specific performative adventure which oscillates between beauty and disgust.
HOT PRESS Interview. 2000
“For anyone naive or uninformed enough to believe punk rock is a style, Estel is a punk rock band. We hope to see you in the new year, and remember if you are on your own side, who can be against you? Stay positive. Estel.” Insert to debut Estel 7″, ‘One Deep Breath b/w Crunch Crunch It s So Quiet’ (LTP002)
They’ve only been playing together for the last two years, and in the last eight months they’ve delivered two of the finest records to grace my turntable in quite some time. Introducing Estel Sarah and Ashley Sheil on guitar/bass/vocals and keyboards respectively, Andrew Bushe on drums and Grainne Donahue on guitar and bass. In February this year, they put out a hand-stamped record beautifully packaged in handpainted covers. It only got a limited run of 200 pressings, and as a television advert doesn’t say, this record is no longer available in the shops.
But fret not, as one of the most intriguing, individual and refreshingly innovative debut albums to delight these ears in some time is just about to claw its way into the hearts, minds and record collections of open minded music lovers.
It is charmingly entitled Angelpie I Think I Ate Your Face, and while the vinyl release maintains their penchant for limited pressings (only 100 copies record collectors on your marks get set ) it will receive an international CD release on Folkrum Records. Angelpie is an addictive listen a perfectly formed cyclical record exploring a dark and twisted popscape, from the sloping opener ‘Nutputragies’ to the dreamy otherworldliness of ‘Langoliers’. But is it really punk rock? Yes, in that it most certainly challenges convention, not in any hackneyed, preachy, shouty or posey manner, but as a welcome and perfectly crafted alternative to what mainstream rock and pop has become.
Sarah Sheil begins their story, far away in the un-rock n’ roll capital of County Roscommon.
“We lived in Roscommon (Sarah and Ashley). Went to Art College for a year. It was shite. We moved up to Dublin in ’97 and arsed around for a year. We didn’t know what to do about how to form a band, or what was the way to go about it. So, we just wrote some songs. We met Grainne and did our thing in Eamonn Doran’s in the afternoons. Andrew was there for one of those gigs and he started coming along. He thought we were an art project!
“Yeah! They were brilliant! All this noise!” raves Andrew as if he had just witnessed Estel for the first time. “They sounded like the first Sonic Youth album with no drummer. I just asked could I join and that was that. I had been in the Waltons and it was an even more hellish noise. I thought they looked good and sounded good. I could play drums and they were girls, so yeah, cool! I think anyone whose been a fan since the start, not a fan ‘cos that s a silly word for us, rather someone whose been into us, can see a lot more confidence in what we do and a greater focus.”
“In the beginning, Andrew put drums on the stuff we’d already made, but now we all make music together,” adds Grainne. “The 7″ is a good example of that”, continues Andrew. “‘One Deep Breath’ was obviously written before there was a drummer and ‘Crunch Crunch’ was written around a drummer. You can see, sorry, hear a difference.”
And you can certainly hear the difference between Estel and every other hopeful brat pack on Angelpie. Initially, obvious reference points are the sonic freedom that punk and freeform rock outfits from Chicago, Washington and Glasgow brought to contemporary guitar based music. However, it would be a grave mistake to lump them in with the so-called ‘post-rock’ scene.
For starters, three of the eight tracks on Angelpie have vocals, and most importantly Estel have taken the cue from these bands to paint their own sonic canvas, eschewing the traditional structures and constraints of rock, but still sounding refreshing, vital and accessible.
“The front cover probably sums it up,” ponders Grainne. “All this pretty childlike stuff and then the evil sinister stuff and the big scary childlike hand coming in. You’ve got all these childlike keyboard sounds and the evil guitars.”
One of our mates did the album for a total knockdown price of fifty quid a day. We couldn’t even afford that!” exclaims Andrew. “So, we did it in a day and half! But seriously, we had it all down in a day and a half. There was no pressure. I don’t see the point in fucking niggling over a piece of music. You record something and niggle over it for five or six days what’s the point?
“We usually always go with the original take”, interjects Sarah. “Too much music at the moment sounds overproduced particularly by Dublin bands or Irish groups in general,” opines Andrew. “Fifty layers of tracks that you don’t need. If you play your songs properly you can do them in a day. We were certainly a live band before we were a recorded band, and I’d rather represent that on vinyl. A lot of bands have albums that don’t sound like their live sound.”
“So we are not disappointing anyone!,” laughs Grainne.
“See, you can put a chimp in front of a thirty-six-track desk, or you can have someone who knows what they’re doing on a four track and it sounds amazing. All the early Dischord and Touch and Go records were recorded on four-tracks. That stuff still stands up today. A producer can’t make a bad band sound like a good band.”
“Basically, you can’t polish a turd,” concludes Grainne.
Angelpie I Think I Ate Your Face is out now on a strictly limited vinyl run of only one hundred copies from Road Records, Fade St, Dublin 2. Estel release the CD nationally and internationally as in from their launch bash on Monday 30th October in Whelan s.
SMOG VEIL.
SMOG VEIL have helped us a lot through digitally distributing our releases from their base in the U.S.
Here’s their own blurb –
Smog Veil Records has been releasing records since 1991, most geared to the post-young, most of which are ridiculous, bombastic, and otherwise under appreciated rock and roll from Northeastern Ohio
These guys have released a ton of good stuff including Pere Ubu.
HEADWRECKER.
HEADWRECKER is a label run by an Irishman in London.
They co – released ‘A Massive, Glorious, Uphill, Shit – Fight’
Focuses on mainly Irish hardcore and filthy dirges.
Check ’em out here – http://headwrecker.wordpress.com/
QUARTER INCH COLLECTIVE.
This is an amazing label that primarily releases cassettes.
They released our ‘No Fi, Lo Fi, Hi Fi’ cassette.
Here’s the ‘about’ section from their own site –
Quarter Inch Collective is a little record label that likes to put out tapes.
We like all kinds of music, especially the weird and beautiful types.
Our first release was Quompilation No. 1 in January 2011 which featured 13 of Ireland’s best young bands covering some of their favourite songs of 2010. It was a huge success and the cassette sold out pretty much immediately following a rollicking ol’ launch gig in the Lower Deck. Further releases followed in 2011 in the form of No Fi, Lo Fi, Hi Fi, a collection of B-Sides and Rarities from legendary Dublin alternative-types, Estel and a split cassette from Ginola and Turning Down Sex called It’s A Disagreeable Thing To Be Whipped.
2012 has so far brought the release of Quompilation #2, which completely sold out at the launch in Dublin’s Crawdaddy. We’ll have four new releases in May and plenty more throughout the year, so keep an eye on things over the next few months.
We’ve also moved into promoting gigs for people and have put on some really fun things over the last few months, with some more big things to come in the near future. We do all sorts, from crusty punk in tiny venues to experimental electronics in massive churches, so get in touch if you’re looking to play in Dublin and we’ll try to help you out.
Support these people now!
Listen To ‘No FI, Low Fi, Hi Fi’ for free!
Buy it here – http://quarterinchcollective.bandcamp.com/album/no-fi-lo-fi-hi-fi
Or as part of a pack here – http://estel.bigcartel.com/product/huge-bumper-pack-with-free-cassette
Listen to ‘A Massive, Glorious, Uphill, Shit – Fight’ for free!
Buy it here – http://estel.bigcartel.com/product/a-massive-glorious-uphill-shit-fight
Download it here – http://www.smogveil.com/pages/exclusive-download-only-releases
EVENT GUIDE INTERVIEW WITH LEE CASEY. (2001?)
Lee Casey interviews Estel.
Estel first emerged in 1998. Since then, they have released a cassette, a seven-inch and an album, all on their own Little Plastic Tapes label. In the course of the past year, having undergone a number of line-up changes, they have toured both Britain and Ireland, appeared on two independent compilation albums and recorded the songs that will make up their next slew of releases. This month sees the issue of a new single on their label, ‘True Stories’/’My Raymond is Contagious’. In addition, plans are underway for a split release with Australian band 99; they are due an appearance on the next Road Relish 7”, and they have organised a couple of Irish gigs with American electroclash duo Winterbrief.
All in all, a veritable cornucopia of activity, it would seem. But Estel is currently fighting an image problem. “People tend to think that we’re gone,” says drummer Andrew Bushe. “I think that we’ve been doing as much or more than a lot of bands, it’s just that we haven’t been playing big venues. I’m happiest now with what we’re doing.”
Grounded in this city’s longstanding hardcore scene, the same creative environment that has given birth to contemporaries such as The Redneck Manifesto and Joan of Arse, Bushe is concerned about the ongoing health of the underground. “In the past couple of years, there are more people coming to gigs than ever but it has really just become entertainment. When bands like ourselves, or Joan of Arse, or The Redneck Manifesto play in a bigger venue there are so many people there, but when you play in The Temple the next week, none of those people are going to come and see you. They only want to go to big venues.”
He sounds a warning note to his peers in the invisible community of bands. “We’ve become a little mainstream, almost, with its own stars and whatever else. I think it’s dangerous to sacrifice what the underground is worth and all the work that has gone in to building it just to pull bigger audiences.”
Bushe also poses some questions to people who go to gigs by local bands. “People have got to ask themselves why all these bands put their records out on independent labels? Why won’t they play with bigger venues? Why won’t they play gigs with bigger promoters? I think that you’ve almost got to ask yourself why are you there. I would hate to think that people were there just to have a chat and nod their heads along. You like to think that people are there for a bigger reason.”
But if these words seem negative or alarmist, Bushe’s motivation is sincere. A passionate advocate of the integrity of ‘the scene’, he is concerned that its message of interdependence and common cause will be diluted as it moves towards greater media and audience acceptance.
“I’d just like people to know there is a bigger picture than what they see and to remember that there is more than just a couple of bands here. Let’s keep it moving forward. There is a whole other scene out there. It’s going to change unless your heart is in it, so let’s try and do something useful with it. One day it’s going to be gone.”
Copyright Lee Casey. All rights reserved.
cult of estel 