Described by the Thin Air as ’11 tracks of bona fide anthems for a society in desperate need of an adrenaline shot’, ‘Euphoric Recall’ from Limerick legends Post Punk Podge and the Technohippies is 5 years old this May. The album was highly praised by critics for its genre hodge-podge of dance punk, hip-hop and electronic beats with lyrics exploring the harsh reality of modern Irish life.
Podge describes the process as a more personal project in comparison to the band's previous releases: “I remember I decided I was going to do everything myself with an engineer. I just sampled old funk or techno drumbeats from YouTube.”
“At the time, I was finding it hard to rely on other people. I wanted to do it all myself, which ended up making it less fun, to be honest. I prefer to collaborate with people – with the lads in the band, now it's way more fun, it’s a collaboration where everyone plays what they want. We make suggestions back and forth, but there's complete freedom.”
The album, in contrast to their previous releases, was obsessively planned before entering the studio. “I wrote everything in advance, all the lyrics and music. There was something like 30 planned parts for each song, and we ended up using barely 15for each one.”
Mícheál Keating did the heavy lifting in terms of producing, mixing and engineering, “If it wasn’t for Micheál, I wouldn’t have been able to make the album. I am useless at technology. He's a great musician, he's multi-talented”. Keating is a juggernaut of the Limerick music scene, formerly of the acclaimed alt-rock trio Bleeding Heart Pigeons and current member of The Low Field.
Euphoric Recall was released in May 2020, coming together during a turbulent time in Podges' life. The finished album sat for months unreleased. “I joke that I leaked my album. I was meant to release it much earlier, but I couldn’t because I was in the hospital. I was suffering from bad bipolar depression and OCD; I didn’t even know I had it until they diagnosed me in the hospital. I sat on it for months and was slowly but surely getting better. On a random day, I got time out to go home, and I just put it up as quickly as possible. Looking back, mentally, a lot was going on.”
The record opens with ‘Gentrification Nation’, a trancey “very dancey, sort of Chemical Brothers tune”, concerning the revolutionary act of artistic creation in the face of the neoliberal sanitisation of culture.
‘Zoo’ is a powerful tune carrying biblical imagery paired with snake charmer fiddle melodies, exploring conformity and the destruction of nature. ‘All the cool vegans cha ching cha ching’ perhaps describes how even those with the best of intentions are still contributing to the system that makes us all march ‘two-by-two’. “Zoo was me attempting to be a rapper, but it sounds more like ranting, something in between the two. My biggest influence on that track was John Cooper Clark or Carl Hyde from Underworld. The lyrics for it were a collab with Arthur Ritis, he's a member of Crying Loser now, they are brilliant.”
Original lyric scans from Podge
Hard Man features The Mary Walloper's central pair, The Hendy Brothers. At the time, the pair were performing as a rap duo, TPM. "We've been great friends since the TPM days. I met them in 2018, we were both supporting Jinx Lennon in the Spirit Store in Dundalk. I had been talking to Charles on Messenger back and forth, but we had never met in the flesh. When we actually did meet, it was like I knew them all my life, stayed in their house for the night, they basically kidnapped me.”
“TPM are great, they still get a lot of plays. They did a comeback with KneeCap at the 3Arena. They were about to be signed to a label as The Mary Wallopers, but were told they had to give up TPM, so they told the agent to fuck off, they’ll always have it in their back pocket if they want to do it again.”
“Hard Man was really just dealing with misogyny and how groups of fellas are only hard when their friends are around.” Podge's relationship with the brothers continues today, playing fiddle on the hugely popular ‘Eileen Óg’ from the Wallopers 2022 release. “I've played the fiddle since I was 8 years old. I'm in a Mary Wallopers fan group on Facebook and saw that someone's son is learning to play the fiddle from my own playing on Éileen Óg.”
‘Only, Love Song’ is a sharp turn in the album – it dips both lyrically and sonically into darker territory, carrying solemn verse that follows the biblical imagery of Zoo, “Catch the blood from the thorns of Pontius Pilot to my lord. I got higher and higher til I hit dark clouds. The devil’s dandruff took every pound. Unsound heads soon get found out. I loved drugs more than you, you loved drugs more than me.”
‘Rejection, Again’ is a breakup track about not only a relationship breakdown due to one side moving to a different country, but also the young Irish experience of not being able to commit to anything at home due to a lack of long-term prospects. The song asks what the point of attempting to sustain a long-term relationship is if you'll never have the opportunities or comforts that couples have traditionally had throughout time.
1984 and Attic Laundry are scathing tracks typical of Podges' discography, criticising conformity and the effects of blind obedience, “Lyrically Attic Laundry is about the Magdalene Laundries and sort of the Catholic Church overall, it has the angelus bells and a lot of Catholic rhetoric.”
Post Traumatic Stress Destruction and Panic Prevention are a sudden melodic break from the bombardment of the rest of the album. The songs are low and reminiscent of monks chanting, prompting the listener to sway back and forth, soothing tracks that seem to describe panic attacks and an acceptance of everything the album has thrown at the listener thus far.
“For me, it’s the Syd Barrett thing of painting with sound. Using lyrics, process things through sound. I use a lot of effects through pedals or a ton of reverb and delay on the guitar. On Panic Prevention, I used cheap multi-effects pedals to get weird shoegaze sounds – the kind where you wouldn’t be able to tell whether it’s a violin or guitar.”
Euphoric Recall sonically is a final, rising celebration of everything heard thus far. “It's about my friend Kim and I and looking back on the good times we spent together sessioning. They tell you in rehab that looking back on these times fondly is bad for your recovery. But I feel I needed to honour where I came from to move forward, and the song is about identity and how it shaped you in the past and in the present.”
The bands ‘Ruralcore’ debut was preceded by a slew of EPs and singles, bolstered by feverish performances up and down the country. 2017 was a whopper year with the release of Kick Against The Pricks and the band's first performance in Pharmacia. “Our first gig was in November of that year; I had performed on two other occasions with Naive Ted playing the songs we had worked on together. It was a DIY LK gig, that'll tell you how long ago it was. Our current guitarist crowd surfed at that gig.”
“Le Pizza Galaxy supported us, a sort of live improvised techno group consisting of Chris Quigley, Spud Murphy and Steve Savage.”
“I remember being scared shitless, being honest with you. I had brought two giant fans for either side of me because it was the only way I was going to be able to breathe in the mask; I stupidly hadn’t cut a proper hole in it. It was a stressful gig, I remember the violin not working, I was so pissed off after because I wanted it to be better. I remember I met BlindBoy coming up the stairs. We have been friends since we were younger, and I remember being sickened that he didn’t get to see it, but maybe it was for the best.”
Podges' early work consists of fiery, preaching attacks on the rotten hegemony of Irish life, a sentiment that continues in Euphoric Recall but seems more mature, turning the attacks inwards for an introspective rant against one's own mental health. “Not a lot has changed since the early releases, I think the names of people change, but the rest says the same. The state the city is in has gotten worse, if anything, due to crime and drug problems. The housing crisis definitely hasn’t changed.”
5 years onfrom this release, Podge and the Technohippies are tinkering away in the studioat their next album, ‘Cost Of Living Prizes’.
“Over the years, the band has changed a lot. We have Cian McGuirk on guitar, aka ‘Mr. The Boom is Back, we've also got DJ Carey and Danny O’Shea from The Low Field. Barry Johnson is our new drummer.”
“It's an 8-trackalbum - we got most of it done over 3 days. Barry and I did the rhythm tracks, and then Cian came in and did the guitar and synth. I did all the vocals in one day.”
The Hendey brothers are planning to return on a song called ‘A Rebel Song’. “It’s a throwback to being political and always giving out about the state of Ireland. It's obviously influenced by rebel songs and is a sort of Celtic Rock for want of a better word, wouldn’t be as good as the Pogues or something. It’s a trad tune with the Hendys playing banjo and singing.”
‘Cost Of Living Prizes’ is planned to follow the signature Technohippies genre soup. “The opening track is techno, the second is a funk tune. There are just straight up punk songs, one of them is called ‘Gone Feral Again’ which is a mad noise rock kind of funky thing, it’s a bit all over the gaff.”
Podge and the Technohippies have had a prolific output, releasing yearly since 2016, only taking a break in 2022. “We were just constantly putting stuff out. There is so much going on at the moment, I'm collaborating with Harry Kelly on a song.” The album is planned for release by the end of the year.
“Euphoric Recall is about cherishing life even through the rough times. It's about sitting with all your good points and bad points and putting them into your art.”
EuphoricRecall can be listened to HERE on Bandcamp
