Reviews | ||
Dublinks.com - September 22 2005 "Melodic electronica at the Temple Bar Music Centre on Thursday, the 22nd of September. Ken McHugh was born in County Mayo and grew up playing Irish traditional music. At school he discovered The Pixies and Nirvana and started playing in rock bands. It was only when he made the move to Dublin that he discovered sampling, dance music and breakbeats. Inspired by the invention of Orbital, the sonic adventures of Bjork and Stina Nordenstam and the melodic perfection of Brian Wilson, he began creating his own music. Working in various Dublin studios, McHugh started assembling equipment for his own studio, Area 51. He continued to refine his talents by producing other artists including David Kitt's album, The Big Romance. My Sanctuary was recorded over a year long period and was originally concieved as an instrumental album. But McHugh decided to take these compositions and transform them into songs. McHugh brought in Carol Keogh of Tychonaut and Cathy Davy to provide vocals for the tracks. Keogh played a particularly important role singing on half a dozen tracks and contributing lyrics. My Sanctuary features the intoxicating electro-pop beat of "Jellyman", the floating trip-hop of "Lets Normalise" and the industrial clanging of "Little Green Men". The album proved to be to complex and varied for the major labels, so McHugh put the album out on his own label, Left Hand Records in 2003. My Sanctuary was greeted by loud critical acclaim and the album was picked up by the London-based independent, RGR. Autamata release their second album, Short Stories on the 16th of September on N4. Featuring the vocals of Carol Keogh and Sarah Verdon, Short Stories is a quantum shift in band's production and undeniable pop sensibility. The album features an array of new songs and styles including the electroclash of "Bring It On", the sashay-pop of "Goldilocks" and the warehouse party feel of "Summer's Son"."
Róisín Dubh - Autamata profile "In an age where most bands find one sound and stick to it, Autamata - founded by musician and producer Ken McHugh, and featuring the unmistakeable voices of songwriter-vocalists Carol Keogh and Sarah Verdon - have always stood out. Short Stories, their second album, a sprawling, utterly disparate, breathtakingly ambitious and above all hugely fun exploration of near-limitless musical and emotional terrain, confirms that the band are impossible to shoehorn into anything as boring as one musical genre. If the album has a theme, it's one of love: love lost and love gained. If you like, it's the musical equivalent of a miniature film festival: 13 short films each with its own distinctive characters and its own palpable mood, with all the limitless variation and surprises that implies. Just as a music lover's vinyl collection, CD rack or iPod will reflect its owner's desire to jump from hip hop to dream-pop to soundclashey disco-rock to folktronica to everything else besides, Ken, Carol and Sarah are modern music lovers whose tastes and greediness for playful experimentation across all musical genres know no bounds. Hence - just like its creators' tastes - Short Stories genre-jumps, too.
Thus, the modernist Peaches-style electroclash aggression of 'Bring It On'
segues seamlessly into its complete opposite: the hallucinatory sashay-pop
of 'Goldilocks', with its shining, crystalline textures and dreamlike mood;
which then itself dissolves into the exquisitely bittersweet remembrance of
things past that is 'Skimming Stones'. Elsewhere, depending on your mood,
you can groove to squelchy post-Aaliyah slouch-pop about lovers' insecurity
('The Tap'); you can slam-dance to a post-Destiny's Child anthem about how
an Independent Woman's attitude adjustment led her to happiness (the
filthified whip-crack that is 'Dirtybird'); you can sway to the doomy
early-'80s warehouse party last-dance that is 'Summer's Son'; you can laze
to the splashy banjo-and-accordion-led sea shanty/cowboy song that is 'Out
To Sea'; or you can squint in the beachside setting sun that is 'A Clear
View'. And that's only the half of it.
“After writing My Sanctuary,” says Ken, “I took Autamata a step Autamata's debut album My Sanctuary exceeded any ambitions even Ken himself might have had for it, bringing with it two landmark music videos from Irish animation legends D.A.D.D.Y. and winning placement in films and adverts on both sides of the Atlantic. Above all, however, its success inspired Ken to play around with his own ideas about music. “Short Stories, for me, is a compilation made from a two-year period of writing, where Carol, Sarah and myself wrote 20 songs and 10 instrumentals, and then chose our favourites and recorded them. Whereas My Sanctuary was put together by making instrumental tunes first, which we then formed into songs, Short Stories was mainly created the opposite way, writing songs first and playing around with ideas about their sound and feel afterward. “I like making Autamata albums as musical journeys,” Ken says, “where each track has its own identity -as opposed to a lot of other artists, who seem to find one sound and stick to it. I know this is unconventional,” he says, “but I think things have changed. It's not like it was, where people used to be into only one kind of music, and be part of a particular 'scene'.
We're living in a time now where people are really passionate and For people who truly love music, Short Stories has more than a few good yarns to tell."
RTÉ - Other Voices 3, May 15 2005 "Ken McHugh, the man behind Autamata, was born in Mayo and grew up playing trad music. School, however, introduced him to the louder sounds of The Pixies and Nirvana and stints in various bands followed. His move to Dublin then opened up even wider vistas, with sampling, dance music and the works of Bjork, Stina Nordenstam and Brian Wilson all becoming familiar haunts. Working in various Dublin studios, McHugh stockpiled the knowledge, saved up the cash and set up his own studio, Area 51. He produced David Kitt's acclaimed full-length debut, 'The Big Romance', and has also worked with a host of other acts. 2004 saw the full international release of Autamata's debut 'My Sanctuary', a genre-jumping album which had warmed up Irish audiences since 2002 and featured the vocal talents of Cathy Davey and Carol Keogh of Tychonaut. Two tracks from 'My Sanctuary', 'Fragments' and 'Jive County', have since been used on numerous television ads and, in the case of the latter, in the US film 'Standing Still'. 2005 will see McHugh begin work on his sophomore album."
cluas.com - "My Sanctuary" "In what is currently a highly regimented and commercially driven music biz “My Sanctuary”, a collection by Autamata, represents a quaint rarity-it’s a labour of love, music made for fun rather than figures, with melodies aimed at the mind rather than the moolah. Sparse electronicaAutamata is the brainchild of Ken McHugh, a highly rated and decorated Dublin studio boffin. The album’s publicity blurb cites Brian Wilson and Orbital as influences-sure enough, the skittish “Jive County” sounds like Wilson put through a techno blender while “fragments”, the album’s opener, is a happy, almost jazzy take on Orbital’s “The Box”. McHugh occasionally over-reaches - “Little green men” is Autechre for slow learners, while the laughably portentous “to be a robot”, a spoken piece, falls firmly into the “seemed like a good idea at the time” bag. McHugh recruits Carol Keogh and Cathy Davy for vocal duties. They’re both adept in completely different ways which blurs the album’s focus, but not terminally so. On “Out of this” and “Postscript” Keogh is tough and tender, rather like Róisín Murphy before she became a mannequin. Cathy Davy on the other hand, could be a star someday - “Jellyman” is an attempt at playfulness and not up to much but Davy makes it sound wilfully and wickedly carnal. Every note she sings has the scent of sin. “My sanctuary” manages to be chaotically cluttered, eclectic, at once shrilly discordant and saccharine sweet. So yes, you’ll like it." Anthony Morrissey
Contact Music - Autamata
"Autamata is the creation of Dublin-based
artist/producer Ken McHugh who this week releases limited edition EP ‘Tales
From My Sanctuary’, a taster of forthcoming album ‘My Sanctuary’ released
February 04.
The Lobby - Autamata profile "Autamata release their début album, My Sanctuary (Lefthand/RMG) on 20th September 2002. Autamata is the brainchild of Dublin-based artist/producer Ken McHugh. My Sanctuary was recorded over a year-long period whilst the producer was working on various other musical projects. Ken describes the album as, "A manifold of sounds that merge to create an aural journey of mixed experiences and emotions". Having reached a point where the marriage of live instrumentation and electronic programming came naturally and fluently, Ken began to incorporate all these influences into Autamata and set about making his debut album, at the same time establishing his own record label, Lefthand Records. One year on and My Sanctuary is born. "The album was built up from layers of electronic music, structured into songs featuring guest vocalists, Carol Keogh, Cathy Davey and my wee nephew Michael who got to 'be a robot' for a while", Ken explains. "I even decided to sing on a couple of the numbers myself." All clichés aside, Ken really does make the music for himself as a soundtrack to his own life and experiences. Realising that he was making the equivalent of an album's worth of music a year, he decided to share this music with the rest of the world, each album documenting his creative vision of that time regardless of musical trends and styles. Although his background is in traditional Irish/ folk music, playing around Ireland as a youngster with his family's band, Ken quickly discovered Nirvana and Pixies and started "banging it out in a few garage guitar bands". A post-school stint studying sound-engineering introduced the budding technophile to the world of synthesizers and samplers, when he began taking in everything from hiphop to ambient, electronica to pop and dance. Work in a number of recording studios raised money for Ken to buy his own equipment and that was the beginning of the road that brings us to his 'sanctuary'. His current influences range from Bjork/Stina Nordenstam through to Orbital, Aphex twin and the Future Sound of London. The producers he most admires include Brian Wilson, Nelle Hooper, Timbaland and the Neptunes. The advent of modern technology has allowed Ken McHugh the autonomy to create music in the studio, and he is now intent on taking that technology into the live arena, rehearsing with a 3 piece band and giddying up ready to start gigging early next year, with a full-on visual presentation. In his Dublin studio, Area 51, in recent years Ken has worked with a host of local and international acts: "David Kitt"'s 'The Big Romance', Creative Controle, Naimee Coleman, Moya Brennan ,various dance, pop, R'n'B projects, and a few movie soundtracks. He is currently working on Conor McPhearsons new feature length film "The Actors" starring Michael Caine."
RTÉ - September 19 2002 Lefthand/ RMG - 2002 - 54 minutes Where sparse electronica risks falling into the clinical category, it is usually rescued by the undulating (and lovely) vocals of Carol Keogh ('Out of This') or Cathy Davey (Let's Normalise'). However 'Registered User' takes a wrong turn and ends up as a dull journey through bleepy robotics. Autamata try to cover a lot of musical terrain and the result is rather uneven. 'Little Green Man' begins as an aimless synthesiser plod before turning into an updated John Ford film score. 'Jive County' - one of the best tracks - is an airy mix of acoustic and electronic sounds. This up and down-ness is most noticeable in the constant interjection of sounds or samples at oddly-timed intervals. Autamata runs towards the finish line that Fourtet has already crossed, but the latter in a more engaging way. McHugh produced David Kitt's 'Big Romance' and understandably, there is much overlap in production sounds and sequences. While Kitt's younger brother singing on 'Another Love Song' was something of a first, McHugh's nephew sounds like an unsuspecting vehicle for pretension on 'To Be A Robot'. This is a very worthy, if somewhat patchy effort that has some beautiful moments. Autamata's real potential is apparent, but it's a little thinly spread on 'My Sanctuary'. Sinéad Gleeson, 2/5
General Press
Short Stories
John Walshe, 8/10 "Ken McHugh rose to prominence as the producer who steered David Kitt through 'The Big Romance', and now he's applying the same attention to detail and harnessing of ideas to himself. A lack of ideas is one thing that McHugh can never be accused of, across eleven tracks he has at least thirty of them, whether it's the notion of Japanes ambient New Order ('Fragments'), the disaster at a classical recital recalled by 'Little Green Men' or sticking a folk finger in your ear to a neo-bhangra beat (recent single 'Jellyman'). In looking for a label deal McHugh was told he had too many ideas and had to concentrate on one style. He told them to piss off: our gain, their loss." This rather stunning set, following the excellent EP, 'Tales from My Sanctuary', is a kind of edgier Zero 7. Excellent. One musician's dizzying eclecticism is another's too-much-of-a-good-thing self-indulgence, leading some fans to applaud musical polyglotism in a few bands, while decrying it in most. Autamata, aka Dublin-based Ken McHugh, tests this distinction to the utmost with a debut that touches base with pop, electro, trip-hop, whimsical acoustica and full-blown orchestral interludes. 6 of its 11 tracks are graced by the voice of Carol Keogh, including the winning Lemonjelly-esque Jive County. But the effect is momentarily brilliant rather than wholly wonderful. The Kate Bush-indebted Out Of This and Registered User are thrilling. And still the resurgent's continue to make left-field music for discerning popular consumption and airplay on fringe radio programmes. The person behind this latest Dublin-based electronica pop-collective is producer/artist Ken McHugh; others involved include vocalists Cathy Davey and The Tycho Brahe's Carol Keogh, each of whom provide requisite balmy sibilants while McHugh's manifold sounds act as a backdrop to sooth the temples. While it seems primarily experimental music, skilfully packaged to be swallowed in bite size chunks, there's a thoroughly acceptable school of thought behind it. McHugh's autonomous blend of 'real' instruments with digitised sound is warm and melodic, while the album's title is a hint to it's internal logic. Altogether, a treat. ***
Press Review's of Autamata release "My
Sanctuary" "It’s catchy and will have you humming
along all day long... electronica that has emotion, something that lots of
electronic music lacks... an album that will never gather dust in your CD
rack."
Whisperin & Hollerin - "My Sanctuary" - May 2004 "Ken McHugh is a recording engineer and musician from Dublin. This delicious collection of pieces is testimony to those two sides, and no less than you'd expect from such a culturally rich city. "My Sanctuary", his first full album of solo work, has eleven tracks blending electronic structures, natural instruments and real voices. The result is a human-sounding cycle of engaging and beautiful sounds. The range is beyond industry limits of what you’re normally allowed to take to market in one cover. But it spends enough time with each piece to build, display and complete a scene before moving gently onto a new neighbourhood. McHugh's folk roots show through in the way that every piece makes an integrated musical statement of song-like narrative. The astonishment of new sounds and twists is always deftly telegraphed, so the journey proceeds with a natural and awestruck comfort. Much like a walk through Dublin itself. Cathy Davey and Carol Keogh sing their own lyrics on seven of the tracks and young Michael O'Rourke renders "To Be a Robot" in finely poignant style with Eimar O'Grady adding telling cello lines. The spoken lines of computer error and hard drive failure are the saddest and most mysterious words you'll hear all year. Ken sings the oddball languor of single "Jive County" which I love like a friend. The website has a nutty video, but the song lives perfectly well on its own account. It has an alt-country feel, with spikes of contemporary sound splinters that tickle the jaded palette like the best chilli. Curling up like chocolate behind it is "Out of This", with Carol Keogh singing warm and insistent reassurance against a background of Japanese counterpoint vocals and very fine backing track. It’s adult accomplished pop at its best. "Hide and Seek" is an impressive soundscape that takes its longer time frame with South East Asian nuances and a firm pulse. Carol Keogh's voice threads it together and glitchy stutters punctuate harp sounds. "Jellyman" has Cathy Davey singing virtuoso words to a tune that could be a 70's punk throwback, with real big bass and drums and a Space Invaders keyboard riff. Lovely. Let the music be your friend, too."
XFM Online - "Jellyman" - February 23 2004 Alicia Kish: "Dublin-based artist and producer Ken McHugh’s second single as Autamata is prime organic electro-pop, if there is such a thing. Warm production is made all the more heartfelt by the vocals of Cathy Davey, who has a Bjork-esque tinge to her voice, and makes ‘Jellyman’ almost float. Slightly left-field, it bodes well for the imminent release of Autamata’s album ‘My Sanctuary’."
Oxegen - Autamata live at The Village, Dublin "After a great twelve months or so, Autamata played The Village the other night. trigger-cut was there automaton-like throughout... When I first got my hands on Autamata's debut My Sanctuary, I couldn't get over how much it reminded me of Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine. I know how crazy that sounds. Musically the albums are a million miles apart, but in terms of the production, both have an unusually crisp, clean feel that allows the listener to detect the multi-layered structure beneath each song. Perhaps this is why the album has impressed so many critics. It's almost like being able to see the wirework in a good puppet-show, and realising just how nifty the puppeteer really is. The puppeteer in this instance is Ken McHugh, the man who produced David Kitt's The Big Romance in 2001, and a guy for whom sentences beginning "Autamata is the brainchild of... " must be getting very tiresome. Still, it's his own fault for coming up with such a remarkable album. Anyway, having missed them at Witnness this summer, I was eager to see whether Autamata could really pull of such densely layered songs in a live setting. In The Village last night, the answer was a resounding yes. Although sound difficulties hampered the show throughout - with Carol Keogh's mic getting lost amid the instrumentation a fair bit - the band nonetheless managed to recreate the impact of the album onstage. In fact, certain songs even sounded a whole better live than they do on the record. Certainly, the minor pop symphony that is Jellyman was much more striking than it is on My Sanctuary, seeming much more frenetic and carefree. Other highlights included opener I Spy, (a new song with a slick pop chorus and a pounding rhythm), the meandering Hide And Seek, and Fragments (starting off all Orbital and FSOL before the bassline goes proto-New Order). Carol Keogh's voice hardly faltered all evening. The former Plague Monkey, now enjoying fresh success with The Tycho Brahe, was at her brilliant best on Onward and Out Of This. Surely at this stage she would even kick Liz Fraser's arse in a "Sounds Like Liz Fraser" contest. Standing in for Cathy Davy was Sarah Verdin, who similarly turned in an excellent performance, particularly on the insanely addictive Jellyman. With images of aliens and snippets from Lost In Space flickering on the screen behind the band all night, it was no surprise that Little Green Men closed the initial set. One of my least favourite tracks on the album, it admittedly has a lot more oomph live. Having departed briefly, the band returned for a short encore which they closed with an inspired cover of The Cure's A Forest. Having just been picked up British independent label RG, who will release My Sanctuary internationally in 2004, Autamata look set for bigger and better things. Judging on tonight's energetic performance, they'll be ready for it all."
Hot Press - Oxegen 2004 - June 30 2004 "Autamata – Some bands are really not designed to venture out of the studio, let alone emerge into the blinding light of a festival but Autamata seem better equipped than most to cope with the stresses of such a transition, putting together a full band to make the most of Ken McHugh’s vision. Look out for: guest spots from Carol Keogh and Cathy Davey." Autamata Kim Porcelli
Hot Press - "Out Of This" - October 22 2004 Autamata
Hot Press - "Jellyman" - April 29 2004
Autamata
Hot Press - "Jive County" - February 28 2003
Autamata
Hot Press - Witnness 2003 - July 14 2003 "Twinkly-sounding rumblings from the Onstage, as well as the need for shelter from the sun, lure a sizable crowd in to Autamata. Having already earned his stripes as a production wizard, Ken McHugh proves himself a deft songwriter. While his songs display Pixies and David Kitt influences, his songstresses of choice, Cathy Davey and Carol Keogh, are whetting the crowd's appetite for their imminent world domination. Talk about calamine lotion for the soul..."
Hot Press - Autamata - March 3 2003 "Sometimes, it’s nice to have your expectations confounded. Only passingly familiar with the Autamata oeuvre beforehand, I arrived at TBMC with a fixed view of what was in store – specifically another studio-oriented outfit offering a worthy but ultimately dull attempt at translating their record into a live setting – and instead bore witness to one of the best gigs I’ve seen in quite some time. Ken McHugh has transposed his debut album, My Sanctuary, from disc to stage with flair and imagination. With the truly spellbinding vocals of The Tycho Brahe’s Carol Keogh captivating the audience from the off, the surprisingly formal guitar/bass/drums/keyboards line-up masterfully wove a supremely atmospheric, hypnotic wall of sound. The background visuals, meanwhile, were perfectly in sync with the music’s spooky brilliance – slow tracks through space, flowers coming into bloom, reversed footage of collapsing buildings. Not that this was by any means an
exclusively, low-key, downtempo affair – the band kick out the jams with the
rendition of the first My Sanctuary single, ‘Jive County’, which
metamorphoses from its earlier lo-fi, electro incarnation into something of
a bass- heavy, funk opus. Taking the rudiments of the post-rock template and
adding the visceral, emotional wallop of Aphex Twin or Mogwai, Autamata have
even at this early stage rocketed to the forefront of the Dublin independent
scene. Mightily impressive.
Hot Press - Live In Dublin - June 3 2004 "There’s no question of Dublin producer Ken McHugh’s commitment to, and mastery of, his craft. Autamata’s first release, My Sanctuary, was an accomplished collection of electronica that, for better or for worse, yielded comparisons to Moby when it was released in 2002. What has followed is an EP of remixes and more recently, a full-blown re-release and re-mix of …Sanctuary. As well, McHugh has recruited animation maestros D.A.D.D.Y (for the excellent ‘Jelly Man’ and ‘Jive County’ videos), he’s bagged a handful of no doubt lucrative film and ad campaign soundtracking deals, and topped it off with an impressive online presence. Here’s an artist that has carefully cultivated, in every sense of the word, a brainchild. But as they say, all work and no play makes Autamata a dull boy and methinks this brainchild needs time to frolic, particularly after more than two years in the studio. Carved and polished down to every bleep, the live set was eclectic, flawless but thoroughly underwhelming. Even with the full live band – bass, drums, guitar, keys, synths – and two very talented female vocalists Sarah Verdon (covering for absentee Cathy Davey) and Carol Keogh (of Tycho Brahe fame), the gig was decidedly lacking in the entertainment stakes. The visual backdrop was a nice accompaniment, synchonised perfectly and with each track title introduced on screen – but ultimately it made a poor substitute for stage presence. Graham Hopkins’ dynamic drumming was as good as it got in that department, and even the playfulness of tunes like ‘Jelly Man’ did little to animate band members or inspire connection with the crowd. There were some moments of greatness – particularly with McHugh rocking out on guitar – but ultimately the tunes sounded overworked and even dated. The final track, ‘Decibel’, was the only new one, but we can only hope that some of that ad money goes into creating some more."
Hot Press - "My Sanctuary" - October 21 2004 Autamata You mightn’t be familiar with the name Ken McHugh, but chances are you own and love at least one record he has produced, such as Creative Controle’s calling card debut ‘Bloodrush’ or David Kitt’s exquisite modern Irish masterpiece The Big Romance. After quickly garnering a sterling reputation for recording other people’s work, Ken is now having a go at recording his own. The backbone of My Sanctuary is an electronic soundscape that McHugh and company use to project their pop vision. Especially effective are two tracks featuring vocalist Cathy Davey entitled ‘Let’s Normalise’ and ‘Jellyman’, well crafted slices of sunny electro pop from the Cocteau Twins and Saint Etienne school of songwriting. Carol Keogh of The Tycho Brahe sings on a grand total of five tracks. While some of these drifted by me, ‘Out Of This’ and ‘Postscript’ and the closing salvo ‘Hide and Seek’ border on brilliance. My most rewarding moments were found in the instrumentals ‘Little Green Men’ and ‘Fragments’. which leads me to think that maybe My Sanctuary buckles slightly under the weight of its own ambition. Nevertheless, it’s a promising if somewhat patchy debut. Eamon Sweeney | ||
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