CPI - The Archive: Lisa Hannigan

After 12 months on the high seas, Lisa Hannigan is coming home. Andrew Hamilton caught up with the Mercury Prize nominee and got a sneak preview of the new songs on the horizon.

One album, two American tours, three times round the UK and right around Ireland more times than she can count - the last year has been an amazing voyage for Lisa Hannigan. With her debut record Sea Sew capturing the hearts of fans and critics alike, the Meath singer-songwriter has finally found her own place in the sun, far from the reach of Damien Rice’s ever shrinking shadow. But now, after living and breathing the album for more than a year, the temptation to move on to newer pastures grows ever stronger. “It’s exciting. I have a few songs done and we are playing them all live at the moment. I definitely want to play them live for a while before we record. As soon as I write a new song, I want to play it live straight away. So we have been doing a bit of that and I think in January I’ll just hunker down and do some serious writing for the next album. I’ve got a good few done but I have a long way to go yet. Some people are able to keep writing all the time but I wouldn’t put myself in that category at all. I mean, I’m always getting bits of ideas but I tend to write more in bunches. I have a few on the go, you know, a few bits and pieces that might eventually turn into songs but there’s no rhyme nor reason to how I go about it," she said.

CPIArchive2009D · #116 The Lisa Hannigan Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Sewing it alone. With a new album and a new musical life, Lisa Hannigan is an artist on the up. Andrew Hamilton chats to the soft spokes songstress and find out about making music as a cottage industry and life after Damien Rice.

LOOKING in from the fringes, all seemed calm. Six years had brought unriveled success; countless gigs in sold-out venues, three million album with all the trimmings. The kingdom was theirs to share. On March 26 last however, all that changed. On that day Damien Rice announced to the world that his professional relationship with Lisa Hannigan had “run its creative course”. Suddenly, and for the first time in her career, Lisa was unemployed. While the exact ins and outs of the ending of this musical pairing remain a mystery, Hannigan’s six years on the road with Rice are times that she remembers fondly. "I never really found it [working with Rice] stifling. I mean, I met wonderful people during that time, a lot of the people that I am still working with. To get to travel and play gigs and see how that works, and then to do recordings and learn how that worked, I learned so much from that and had a lot of fun doing it at the same time,” she said.

CPIArchive2008d · The Lisa Hannigan Podcast

Clare People Interactive

Clare People Interactive (CPI) was founded in the late month of 2006 by West of Ireland journalist Andrew Hamilton. The project was a step into the unknown, an attempt to bridge the gap between the old world of print media and the emerging new media technologies.
At the core of the CPI was a long running series of interviews with Irish and international artists, mostly musicians. These interviews, which appeared first in print and then as free audio podcasts, attempted to provide a richer experience of the subject than had previously been possible in print media. The focus was always on the artist and the work, with journalistic intrusions rare and usually (mercifully) brief.
Between 2006 and 2010, Clare People Interactive grew to just shy of 150 audio podcasts. There were also a dozen video podcasts - the Gonzo Nation series - as well as hundreds of album and gig reviews - which have all, sadly, been lost to the internet.
This archive contains the original 146 audio podcasts in their original format. As the series grew, the audio quality and (hopefully) the standard of journalism grew with it.
Clare People Interactive is the work of Andrew Hamilton. Eternal thanks to John O'Rourke for his technical support, Noel Barrett for designing the many logos and to Gerry Collison for his optimism and support.
This, is Clare People Interactive.