Two weeks ago, singer-songwriter and member of 4-piece Lo-Fi Rock band ‘Bitcrush’, Eoin Ryan released two tracks titled ‘Show You My Love’ and ‘Beidh sé Libh (go deo)', the announcement post of which stated ‘It's been over three years of gigging, travel and life experiences of which I cannot explain through an Instagram algorithm.’ Let us attempt to do that through the LMFAO061 algorithm, otherwise known as an interview in Melt coffee shop on Little Catherine Street during the first sunny day Limerick had seen in months.

Underneath the noise of grown rotund men slopping their lattes, I questioned Eoin on the recording process.

“Myself, Meg Lowney, Ben Young in October 2024 went into Ballysheedy studio (Eoin's bedroom) for these two songs.”

Meg Lowney is an artist from Wexford who performed backing vocals on both tunes. In January, she supported Eoin’s band at their ‘birthday bash’, where she showcased her ‘unique blend of Adrianne Lenker-style folk and experimental IDM.”

Ben Young is a local music wunderkind who found success with his post hardcore band Vacuity , his solo project ‘Floodstreet’, shoegaze band ‘Moving Home’ and now plays drums for the Twinkcore Shamgaze band ‘Codeye’.

- Ben and Seth of Vacuity. Credit Alan David Driscoll.

“We formed a trifecta – myself and Meg were really sick and hungover so it took way longer than it had to.”

The recordings wouldn’t see the light of day for a ‘solid 9 months’ due to the laptop holding the recordings breaking. Once Ben had access to the files, he sent them on to Eoin, who employed the help of his Bitcrush bandmate Oisín Scanlon, who mixed and mastered them in Cedar City, Castletroy.

“Oisin Scanlon had a crème de menthe and a fanta and just worked away, history was born”.

“I remember listening to this trip hop song with a weird effect, and I said do that on the song and in fairness to him he did it.”

The cover art depicting two paper airplanes is the work of Eoin's mother, Anne Marie Morrin.

“She's actually done all of my art, every single Eoin Ryan release is art I stole from her own practice. I look through what she's made and then ask if I can use it for an album cover. She's an artist by trade.”

The 2026 release carries a weight that 2021s ‘Fog Man’ and 2022s ‘When It Rains’ could only try and emulate.

“I wrote both those songs just after I did my Leaving Cert. I was like 18, two and a half years ago. It was a moment after a big release so to say. It's someone who's going into adulthood rather than someone who's stuck in their teenage years, there's a lot  more experience , It's natural you know.”

The older releases feel like a teenager wistfully wondering what it’s like to live, while ‘Show You My Love’ captures that same person confronting the harsh, mundane reality of experience, a love found and then lost. The two singles bubble with hurt and regret, but also with the awe of true joy discovered in that first separation from the humdrum of school days.

“I never felt confident to release them”, Eoin said as his face quickly changed to a softly contorted expression of reflection, “Now it's just at the stage where I have so much new material that I am ready to release, that I feel I have to get these two out beforehand. I couldn’t rerecord them because they were so old.”

“Do you have many ready to go?”, I asked offhandedly

“Oh ya”

“Really?”

“Ohhh yayayayay”

“Full album or EP?”

“Ya full album”

“Serious?! Nine tracks or what?” My shock was palpable due to the fact that I assumed Eoin had been only working on writing for Bitcrush over the last year or so.

“Yaya in and around. Once I get it all fully recorded and mixed, hoping it'll be out by the end of the summer.”

He revealed that he actually had two albums in the works; the man is a creative workhorse that has been chugging away in the background, intermittently rearing his solo projects' new material at gigs like the Catherine Connolly fundraiser in the Commercial and at Harry Maguire's apartment for Gaff-fest 2026.

“Well, actually, there are two albums. One of which is myself and Oisín Scanlon's collaborative record , it's very experimental, very much its own thing. Just a complete collaboration.”

“A lot of it is really piss-take music. I am looking forward to releasing that. My huge obsession with Nick Cave continues, there are a lot of songs on the solo album I am hoping to release that are very similar to Cave or Tom Waits”.

“I hear a lot of Elliot Smith in the two songs”, I say hesitantly, expecting a groan at the comparison that has probably been put to him many times.

“Oh yaaa, I love Elliot Smith, I really do, I love Sean Freeney. Don’t put that in”, I left it in. Sean Freeney is a wonderful folk singer and painter from Castleconnell who sometimes performs excellent covers of Elliot Smith songs during performances.

“I really do fuck with Elliot Smith tho, especially when I was writing those songs. Let's not lie, it’s a breakup song. Who do you listen to after you’ve had a breakup? Elliot Smith and in fairness, he saved the day like, such a brilliant, articulate songwriter, even learning his songs are so fun to play on guitar that just by having fun you're stepping out of your comfort zone”.

I questioned Eoin on the gap between releases and whether he took a bit of a break from his solo project to spend more time working with Bitcrush.

“Well, a little bit of context, when I released my last single, I was in 5th year. I was the bassist of 50 Foot Woman, then did my Leaving Cert, then left 50 Foot Woman, and then went to the Aran Islands that summer.”

“There were lots of different things that prevented me from being able to focus on music fully. One thing, I'll be very honest, was that after leaving 50ft, I felt a bit lost in the music scene. I love being a songwriter, but I really like connecting with people in a high-energy space because it can be intimidating to feel connected with people if you're just playing your own songs. I love the idea of a punk band playing together, and everyone's dancing as one; that’s fostering a community.”

We moved on to his time with Bitcrush as I reminisced on my interview with the boys back in January. The interview started in the green room of Pharmacia but quickly moved to the tiny upstairs men's bathroom due to the superior acoustics. Several years before, I had stood in the same spot and interviewed Eoin's ex-band 50ft on their success within the Irish punk scene.

I proposed the usual questions I had been running for my whole career, such as ‘How did the band start?’ and ‘What is your creative process?’ and was met with sarcasm so thick (very funny in good fun and well-intentioned sarcasm) that I nearly haemorrhaged trying to discern fact from fiction. In the end, I scrapped the interview. I felt like an old naked man getting whipped by 4 circling bandits on horseback.

Now that It was myself and Eoin one-on-one I proposed the same questions seeking the reality of Bitcrush's inception , ignoring the bathroom tale told to me of crème de Menthes and fanta drank during some Ennis county final.

“I met Garbhán on Inishere, we met because we used to play in the folk sessions, but one night we got really drunk off 10 pints that we got for 9 euros by the way, and we started playing like Stooges, Velvet Underground songs and got kicked out of the trad session. From then on, we became mates, and he told me he was in a band called Bitcrush. But Bitcrush had supported 50-foot woman in Ennis youth centre years beforehand. Both Garbhán and I were both separately completely drunk at that, so we didn’t talk much.”

“Later on, in March 2025, they had to do a battle of the bands, so Garbhán asked me to fill in on guitar, and I was really eager to do it because I hadn’t played in a band setting in a year. It just slotted in really, really well, very, very seamlessly.”

“We practised a few times and even before the gig they were like ‘here man not gonna lie to ya and chatting to the lads and wouldn't mind you joining the band, you know’ we just been gigging since. I have no notions of it. We are a really fun band, and they are really good mates of mine. That’s what's been preoccupying me the last while.”

It was getting close to the end of Eoin's break from work , so we shook hands and agreed to meet for a pint in the afternoon, an agreement to try and enjoy any last bit of sunshine soakage we could before it got dark.

You can stream ‘Show You My Love’ here.