Christian Wethered is a songwriter and poet from Dublin, and his new single The First Thing is out on 22 October on Le Village Pop Records. It's also the opening track on his 2nd album, From The Balustrade, which is due next year.
The song mixes spoken word with singing, and the line it keeps coming back to is "The first thing is keep yourself at bay". According to the press release that's not advice to hide away from life – it's about not putting on a performance and not getting lost in appearances. The lyrics are built from small images (pines, birds, dawn, "a strange star at the end of the road") and he leaves them open rather than telling you a story. The arrangement is described as warm but haunting, with a nod to French chanson. There's a really natural build to it too – the song gradually opens up as it goes along, and every extra layer feels like it's earned its place rather than just being thrown in for effect.
His influences are Leonard Cohen, Serge Gainsbourg, Fionn Regan and Laura Marling, so you get the idea. His first album, Mon Petit Jardin (2021), was sung in English and French and made Hot Press's Folk Albums of the Year, and he's had plays on RTÉ. He's played Electric Picnic, Ireland Music Week and Beyond the Pale, and supported Hayden Thorpe (ex-Wild Beasts) and Paddy Casey.
He writes about music too – for The Line of Best Fit, Totally Dublin, The Journal of Music, Poetry Wales and PN Review – and he's the folk columnist for The Goo. And in 2023 the video for his single La Madeleine won Best Music Video at the Dublin International Short Film and Music Festival.
On the single:
- Christian Wethered – vocals, acoustic guitar
- Dylan Lynch – drums
- Caimin Gilmore – double bass
- Cillian Byrne – electric guitar, keyboards
It was produced by Ber Quinn and mastered by Ruairí O'Flaherty.
Listen to The First Thing on SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/gqjfJtE7Gmg6FLmlzQ
Christian is on Bandcamp at https://christianwethered1.bandcamp.com/ and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/christianwethered/
If this is how From The Balustrade starts, I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of it next year!