What People are Saying about IRISH Makeover

WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT IRISH MAKEOVER!
Irish Makeover*****Irish Makeover is an enchanting album, full of character, soul and magnificent re-workings of timeless ballads. Cork studio wizard Skully reveals a whole new dimension to his musical talent by teaming up with rising stars to breath new life into classic Irish folk songs. Standout tracks include She Moved Through The Fair featuring Myles O'Reilly of Juno Falls. Myles's dark, eerie vocals fuse perfectly with Skully's instrumentation to capture a mystical, Celtic yet modern sound. The Lakes of Pontchartrain features acclaimed Cork singer songwriter Mick Flannery, who adds his husky Dylanesk vocals to great effect. Other talented musical luminaries who feature on this eleven track record include Cork chanteuse Annette Buckley, talented newcomer Kate Murphy and multi-instrumentalist Karl Nesbitt. Irish Makeover was released nationwide on October 20.*****************************

From the Fans:

Hello and good evening Skully!! My cd arrived today :)))) And I was even more thrilled when I opened it and discovered that you had signed it!!!!!Listening to it now and loving it!!All the best from Turku Finland.love, Eva xx*****************************

It sounds Brilliant!Pete Briquette (Boomtown rats)*****************************

God bless itunes!!! Love your work Skully, it's on the ipod ready to go to work with me tomorrow.Jo*****************************

Congrats on CD release. it really is a fun one to listen toCelticcow*****************************

All around my hat, Maddy Pryor with status quo.You did a wonderful job with it....ed****************************

I have really enjoyed your music and look forward to more. Keep up the good work. HomeAgainKathleen****************************

Thank you,such beautiful music.Robin***************************

wow! love your tracks & especially Blackbird! Who is that awesome singer? Very beautiful voice & awesome instrumentals & arrangements!Qristina & Quinn***************************

you have great songs. i have really gotteninto themTifany***************************

today your MUSIC is like the sunshine after a hurricane Love and PeaceClaudia**************************

Each time I listen to Molly Malone, I get swept away!Julianna**************************

Hi SkullyGreat music - I'm really enjoying listening to your tracks!RegardsPhil*************************

Mardyke! So love the guitar...can't stop listening. Also have to compliment you on your sketch of Molly Malone--she's a favorite character of mine. You've truly captured her indomitable spirit (the one that transcends even death) it's all there ;-) made my day!danni************************

"Mardyke" wow really good music.John************************

Hi Skully.....Love the music. I look forward to the CD. By the way, my family is from Cork County. Have a GREAT DAY!!Lori************************

Enjoying all the music very much!!Hope you have a great week.Blue Moon.L.************************

Thank you, Skully - Love your music! It is fantastic!Rhonda***********************

Thanks for introducing me to you fine music. I really do like your makeovers!Mexicajun***********************

I am LOVING the music that I hear on your MySpace page, and looking forward to getting a CD! Thanks for the add!Jean***********************

nice to have you as mine :) but you can call me tori if you want :) i really like the irish songs... they're pretty fun to dance to... even though that probably sounds odd lolTori***********************

Hello,Thanks for adding me.I really like Style of your Music.Sounds Super Awesome.Greetings from Idaho USA and have a super Week,Ron***********************

Thanks for the add! I'm digging the remixes!Maddie***********************

Thanks for the add. Had a listen to Blackbird. Nice sound... I liked both the voice and the arrangement!Best wishes,AyJay***********************

hi hope your weekend going well. Just jumped in to listen to your music...love red is the rose, although my fav is the blackbird ....will be buying CD for sure...Anne***********************

my god i loved molly mallone, lovely song Cian***********************

THANK YOU so much for adding this song back!!! Scarborough Fair rocks!!Mammajuggz***********************

The feeing is mutual Skully, I have been listening to your music and can say I have another favorite artist to add to my list.thank you Willow :-)***********************

I absolutely love your music, got a chance to sit and really listen. I am totally hooked! :0)BarbaraS***********************

Skully, You've got some brilliant music boyo! Keep on wit it!Cheers mate, Charlie***********************

I enjoy "She moved through the fair" Beautiful voice!!!Kari***********************

Thanks for wanting to befriend me your music is great and the irish folk song are electric and INTENSE i LOVE IT...Kanti***********************And many many many more :-)

Songs from IRISH Makeover!

I cannot take credit for the concept here, that accolade must go to Charlie Pinder Sony/V2/Burlywood. One rainy winter's night in Cork, he came up with the idea of doing Old Irish folk songs, a la Skully! And so two years ago I set to work creating Skully versions of these beautiful old Irish songs. Although very electronic (after all that is what I do!) I strove to maintain the powerful emotion that these timeless master pieces possess. The album was recorded at the beautiful Rushbrook Hotel in Cobh, where I was spoiled rotten! and at my little cottage. I would like to sincerely thank all the artists who gave me their time and talent, each adding his or her own color and style to the songs. We had great fun making it!

IRISH MAKEOVER songs.
1/ Molly Malone
2/ The Lark in the clear air
3/ The Lakes of Pontchartrain
4/ Mardyke
5/ She moved through the fair
6/ Blackbird
7/ King of the Fairies
8/ Scarborough fair
9/ Red is the Rose
10/ All around my hat
11/ Shirin

BLACKBIRD
Kate Murphy and I recorded this into the small hours of the night at this little cottage. At one end of the room, my racks of hi tech recording equipment, samplers and computers, the other Kate's beautiful black dog Jake, asleep in front of the open fire, with an oil lamp burning and just one microphone.And that sums up what this version of the Song is about, BLACKBIRD is an old folk song with old world feelings and beauty, and here it meets the 21st century. Beautifully sung by Kate, Its a wonderful example of how timeless these old IRISH songs can be.

MARDYKE
I wrote Mardyke for another prominent place in my life! It is a beautiful leafy area in Cork, lines of colored doors, beautiful old bridges, close to the river Lee. Blindfaith had their second recording studio there, ELM TREE, it is where my career started, and is the place where I became addicted to Coffee, and where music became my mistress....We would finish at 5 am and I would walk home alone, thankful of the cold crisp air after the heat of the studio, and the silence, just the birds singing. Karl and I recorded this at my own recording studio at the beautiful Rushbrook hotel, just a little way down the same river from the MARDYKE.

OVER 70,000 HITS ON THE IRISH MAKEOVER PLAYER! Check it out at www.myspace.com/irishskully

Release of IRISH Makeover cd!!!

October 20th, 2008 saw the release of the long awaited cd IRISH Makeover, a compilation of old Irish folksongs given a new twist by Irish electro musician and music producer Skully, of Cork, Ireland. Skully is well known as one half of the duo Metisse, and has worked with many well known musicians. Below is an article about the new cd, IRISH Makeover.

How IRISH Makeover was produced!

Mark McAvoy's (DOWNTOWN) article.

Having firmly established himself, both nationally and internationally, with acts such as Chapterhouse, Métisse and more recently as a solo artist, Cork producer and musician Skully embarked on an ambitious and bold new project. Working on his new album Irish Makeover (2008) saw Skully recruit and collaborate with emerging talent in an effort to bravely reinterpret and revamp classic Irish folk songs. The fruits of this labour are a triumph: a record which should achieve both longevity and critical acclaim.Skully, who is based in Ireland, reflects on how the album was conceived. He reveals: "It was on a winter's night in Cork about two years ago. Métisse had kind off wound down. We had stopped recording together. I was working on my solo album and I met Charlie Pinder from V2 and Sony Publishing in Cork. I remember the brutal rain pouring out of the sky. We were running back to his hotel and he turned around to me and said: 'I have a great idea! Why don't you do Skullyized folk songs?' None of us took it very seriously. I had never thought of it before. Even the thought of Irish folk songs would have put my barriers up. After a couple of weeks of living with the idea, I kind of thought: "Let's give it a crack!" I started at the Rushbrooke Hotel in a little garage looking out over the river and it was just a stunning backdrop. It represented the turning over of a page for me musically and the beginning of a new era. I was now going to work with lots of different people on a very exciting project."Skully enlisted an impressive array of talented musicians to aid him on this new musical departure. He enthuses: "I didn't want to go for the old favourites. I wanted to use what I thought were the up and coming vocalists. So everybody is very young on the album. It is a Cork project and this album was made on the shores of Cork harbour, although it is very colloquial and very local with very local ideas, it is still a worldwide project."One musician enlisted by Skully was Cork troubadour Mick Flannery, who recently entered the Irish top ten album charts with his second long-player White Lies (2008). Skully is delighted with Flannery's performance on the track The Lakes of Pontchartrain. He explains: "What I was trying to do here was take these songs into the 21st century. What is The Lakes of Pontchartrain? It is one of the most beautiful folk songs that we have. Everyone is used to listening to this, sitting at a fireplace in a pub down in West Cork or in Kerry or somewhere like that. Mick Flannery has this incredible raw voice. Although he is very young, he sounds weathered. My brief to Mick was to sing this like he was in a pub, which he did sitting on a chair with his head in his hands. Then I just twisted this piece of music so far away from what you would be expecting. It has suddenly become a very electronic sound, very far away from its origins, which were the pub. Mick's voice was the only voice that could have done that."Another well-established Cork vocalist who appears on Irish Makeover is songstress Annette Buckley. "Annette did Scarborough Fair. Although it isn't really an Irish song, it is on every single Irish compilation album. It's a beautiful folk song. Again, I wanted to break down all the preconceived ideas of what Scarborough Fair is about. We all know the song and the Simon and Garfunkel version. Nothing of that is in this song. In fact, there is a quality to Annette's voice which is like a 1920s voice. There is a gorgeous quality to it. Here you have an Irish version of an English folk song sung by an Irish Girl that sounds like it comes from the 1920s, yet it is electronic. It's very odd! But it works."During the process of recruiting vocalists for this project, Skully discovered a newCork vocal talent - Kate Murphy. Skully recalls: "Kate Murphy is from Douglas. She is a friend of my sisters. That is how I recruited her. I was at a party one night and I heard Kate singing and she blew me away. She is a folk singer and a very talented songwriter. She sang Blackbird and All Around My Hat, which I still think is an Irish song, but some people say it's English. Kate was a stunning vocalist to work with!"Juno Falls main-man, Myles O'Reilly, was given the unenviable task of singing on the interpretation of the classic The Ballad of Molly Malone, which for this release has been simply renamed Molly Malone, presumably to distinguish the new dark version from the original. Skully confesses: "Miles and I go back a long time and he is an awesome, awesome vocalist. Miles did two tracks; She Moved Through The Fair and probably the most recognisable, yet weirdest track on the album, Molly Malone. This is a really sinister, twisted version of the song that we all know and Miles's voice cuts through it."Thanks to the Internet, Skully sought input from his fans across the world while working on this album. This was also a factor in terms of creating the album's quirky artwork. Skully admits: "Sean O'Leary who designed the cover wanted a dog with a pair of headphones. So we decided to ask everybody online from our My Space page if they could send us in photographs of their dogs wearing headphones. We got llamas, rabbits, pigs and dozens of dogs. We even had people complaining that their dogs ate the headphones. Eventually we got our dog and headphones for the album cover

To listen to and purchase the cd, please visit the website www.myspace.com/irishskully.