Front page	From the Event Guide archive! This article refers to an event which took place on, or until, 21 November 2003 Music Interview - The Tycho Brahe Sheer Art Attack  Beautifully executed and elegantly packaged, 'Love Life' is the recently released second album by Dublin-based band The Tycho Brahe, and its ambitious, and totally satisfying collection of songs make up the double CD worth of material. Founder member Donal O'Mahony gives us some background details on its creation.  What has happened since the name change, since The Plague Monkeys became The Tycho Brahe?  Let's just clear that up first. While myself and Carol are both in The Tycho Brahe, we also have Diarmuid, so it's not really a name change. It's a new band, with a new 1/3 in it, an extra 33 & 1/3 % in the writing, so that's a heck of a lot. When the first album, 'This Is The Tycho Brahe', came out we had a lot of "so this is a name change...." stuff. For me it had been nearly a three-year break from music between bands, and I didn't go near it during that time. When I came back to it, I said that if I was going to do it, it would have to be for the right reasons. It has turned out to be so much more satisfying this time around.  How are things different now to the period when The Plague Monkeys broke up?  I had always remained friends with Carol after The Plague Monkeys, and I knew that she did want to work with me again. At the time, though, I was thinking that there must be more to life than the three or four years of the first band. That relationship was turning out to be more like a marriage, and I just wanted to play the field, albeit in other areas. Although it is only three years ago, that was really like a different era. There was an awful lot of competitiveness in the music scene and it wasn't really very healthy. It was all about deals and who was doing what. Now, the scene is a lot healthier, and the support, through things like radio play, has been much better. Even for this new album, the support has been much greater, nationwide, as well as in the UK. XFM in London has been a particularly strong supporter. We've achieved more in the past ten months with this band than we did in four years of the last one.  Were you encouraged by the fact that there were some very good albums being made by artists that were not part of the major label or distribution networks?  We were fully independent as The Plague Monkeys, but it doesn't feel as lonely as it used to. It is hard to argue with such quality. About a year and a half ago radio stations started to resist just playing what they were being spoon-fed, and that means that there are more opportunities to get played now. We just played in the Czech Republic with the Frames, and one of the songs on the new album is about that trip, and it was amazing to see the following that Glen has over there. It is such a modest kingdom that he has created. He never brags about it, he just goes and he does it. He's one of the best entertainers in terms of giving a crowd what they want.  What did you do for the three years that you weren't in either band?  I did a masters degree in Multimedia in Trinity, which involved video and graphic design and all that kind of stuff. It was funny, because the same principles that I would have applied to composing, recording and mixing a record I found were the same for editing video or rendering finished art work. I had a great year with that. It was unbelievably rigorous, but I'd recommend it if anybody did want to spread their wings a little bit. The mad thing was that it was after doing it that I really realised that the whole of my life was about music. And that was it. I very soon afterwards turned around to Carol and Diarmuid and said "Right, I'm ready. Let's go back and do it". Diarmuid had formed The Jimmy Cake and was also working with David Kitt in Europe. He used to quite literally fly into Dublin and contribute to the album, and he'd otherwise email pointers to the rough mixes that we'd be doing while he was on the road. He was much more involved with this album, and it was me and him all the way in the recording. On the first album, 'This is...' he was taking off with the Cake and Kittser, and Carol was working with Automata (aka Ken McHugh). Their album 'My Sanctuary' and our first one were released in the same week, so for her it has been a rollercoaster. She never gave up. But the three of us go back years and, like a good conversation between friends, we were able always to pick up very quickly from where we left off.  How does the process of composition work between the three of you?  Carol might come to us and hand over a melody and Diarmuid and I would work around that. We'd build whatever we want around that, and we'd then go back and alter what she had done, making it the icing on the cake.  Without necessarily wanting to make unwelcome comparisons, there is one that can be made between 'Love, Life' and Kate Bush's 'The Hounds of Love' album. She had the ability to make seemingly simple songs, but ones that contained immensely complex and subtle component parts. Like your new album, hers were absolutely gorgeous to listen to. Is the comparison fair?  We have no problem with any comparison. She made albums that you would always come back to, both because of the quality of the production and because of her own quality. She made 'Hounds of Love and 'The Ninth Wave', which was really one album but had two distinct themes to it. What happened with us, in releasing a double album, is that we just had way too many songs for a single one. It is only moderately more expensive to manufacture a double album. In eighteen months it means that we have released three CDs. Both myself and Diarmuid have Cuebase computer-based recording set-ups at our homes, so constant recording is easy. Consequently, there were no restrictions on what we could do. We always had an ambition to do a double album, because we are massive music fans and it is not something that is done very often anymore. So much of music is so homogenised now, and so relatively safe. This album is supposed to be a bit schizophrenic. If you think of early Queen albums, like 'Sheer Heart Attack', they are like a compilation of different bands, that suits every mood.  Who writes most of the lyrics?  Carol does, pretty much 100%, although there are a couple of spoken word and surreal pieces on there, not by her. The lyrics and the 'Love, Life' theme come from her. The odd thing is that when Diarmuid and I decided to make a record with twenty songs on it, Carol came up with that theme because that was what was happening in her life at the time. As a person Carol is very driven and very positive.  The Tycho Brahe, with support from Ann Scott, play the Olympia Theatre, on Dublin's Dame Street, on Friday 21st November. Please note that this is a late night show, and that doors open 11.15pm, admission €15. www.thetychobrahe.com + www.mcd.ie