Ciaran Lavery’s fifth album 'Light Entertainment' if a far cry from the singer-songwriter melodies that first graced our ears over a decade ago – 'Songs of Innocence' you could say followed by' Sea Legs' in 2015 – a collaboration with Ryan Vail which was extra-ordinary, and the critically acclaimed 'Let Bad in' of 2016.
Across the years, a cynical edge has seeped in – with even the title ‘Light Entertainment’ is steeped in irony. With tongue firmly in cheek (perhaps), a slightly twisted dark humour pervades and I love it. In theatrical terms, it is the artist holding a mirror up to society – but the reflections are more like those old fun-fair ‘hall of mirrors’ distortions.
Poking fun perhaps here and there at the seemingly twee nature of some forms of support/therapy in the midst of complex mental exasperation – try some mantras perhaps (in Everything Considered: I love myself, most of all, most of all, gotta love yourself), or list three things that helped get you through today “cigarettes, red wine, and Ted Bundy tapes” – ‘he’s well dressed and he’s feeding me fear.’
Hope comes in the form of catchy, upbeat swaggering beats (joyfully ironic) to an album which Lavery in his own words calls his ‘apocalypse record.’ Yet here we are – November 2024 – and the world seems darker than before. Words Lavery uses to describe ‘Light Entertainment’ are (ironically) rather gloomy – here he has poured in all his ‘paranoia, deceit, conflict and desperation.’ Sounds about right – but its themes are captured so beautifully, eloquently, elegantly – straight into ‘Oh my God (No, Your God)’ (featuring the ethereal beauty of Belfast-born Morgana), because my god’s better than yours, naturally. And that’s just setting the scene for the cynicism detected throughout.
‘Light Entertainment’ – with its experimental and multi-textured nuances, nods back to the age of Max Headroom, Talking Heads, reminiscent of artistic cultural production in the early eighties – when the world seemed just as dismal and desperate (ironically – before it went completely insane) as referenced in ‘Looking for a Hit’.
Written and recorded in the space of two weeks with friends Danny Ball and Dan Byrne-McCullagh, this artistic endeavour stretches beyond the recordings and is accompanied by a short film (directed by Shaun Doogan and Ciaran McCann). The film sheds light – or dark– on the themes by following Lavery through ‘a sequence of increasingly surreal scenarios inspired by classic film noir and noughties indie movies.’
Despite the glorious darkness of ‘Light Entertainment’, where cultural production has become automated, artificial, bland and brutal, there’s a chink where the light gets in, some shadowy hope.
Ciaran Lavery is not afraid to dive right in, take the plunge, to be open and transparent even when it hurts – here, he steps up as an artist for this age (a voice crying in the wilderness perhaps). Here he holds the mirror up.
Still, there is hope – and if it’s a battle to survive and to connect with others and ourselves amidst the cacophony of ‘Light Entertainment’ social media and other ‘influencers’ these days, this is a call to more gentle arms; to rise above rather than against, and seek the truth and beauty within, without the cataclysm of white noise we’ve become accustomed to.