Havvk make the most of their musical time

On July 2, Havvk perform at Galway’s Róisín Dubh alongside Cable Boy and that constitutes a homecoming for Hough and drummer Nigel Kenny. The lineup is completed by Mayo man Stephen McHale, and producer and co-founder of the project Matt Harris.

“There are bits and pieces in there, flashes, of running late and wasting time, and that kind of thing,” Hough says of Time Will Kill.

"But it’s more of a look back and a look forward on your life, in terms of what you do with the time you have on earth.”

The weeks leading up to a release can be anxiety-inducing for artists, and Hough admits it’s a “very weird” period. She is attempting to look beyond the day, when the weight of the album will be more tangible.

“My brain just compartmentalises it into somewhere that it’s not real,” she says.

“It’s probably to protect myself. Generally speaking, we’re just so happy with the record and we know our community – there are people already telling us on the sly that they love what they’ve heard so far.

“I think it’s going to be really positive, but it’s really hard to shake that strange feeling that you’re building up to something and it ends up being a day that some people on the internet mention your album.

"It’s more the longer term when it really sits with people.”

Technology, and more specifically social media, are the great contemporary avenues for wasted time, monetising attention and hijacking hours of the day with ultimate stealth.

Hough admits that in some ways, she loves her phone and the Instagram algorithm that captures so much of her attention, but recognises some of its trappings.

“We spend so much of our time absorbing news in this way, but there’s very little space made to have an empathetic conversation with someone,” she says.

"Not have the exact same point of view, but if you did have the chance to talk, maybe you would meet somewhere a bit closer or you would learn something,” she adds.

There are more positive meditations. The Last is a song about appreciating the moments that bring you together with people, locking you together permanently, regardless of what changes as time passes by.

“It’s about always wanting to retain the thought of those things that brought you together,” Hough says.

“Those things always shift and slip through your fingers a little bit, but [you can] be okay with the pain of it drifting away… It’s a happy-sad look at the positive moments that you’ve had together.”

Having spent time living in London and Berlin, Hough has been based in Dublin for the past six years.

Away from the city centre, in the village of Lusk near the coast, it has produced an altogether different pace of life.

She spends more time walking, gardening and being near the sea.

“That has really influenced my perspective on my time,” Hough says.

“I was living in those cities at the right time – I just wanted to be doing all things all the time, being involved in everything. It was amazing and it was overwhelming.

"You would sometimes feel like the best version of yourself and sometimes you’d kind of lose yourself in it. I had some moments of burnout where I just had too many things I was committed to.

“I thought my identity was wrapped up in living in a place where I could be doing every possible cool thing all at once. But actually, when you remove yourself, if you want those things you will always go out and get them. Your friends, the ones that are really important, will still be around. You don’t have to keep up appearances nearly as much as you’d think.”

Havvk’s last album, To Fall Asleep, contemplated insomnia and acted as a vehicle for improving Hough’s relationship with sleep. Time Will Kill has benefitted, she reckons, from the personal development it inspired.

“I learned so much about myself in the few years when we were writing To Fall Asleep,” Hough says. “I touched on having been in a part of my life where I just wanted to do so much, that something in my brain just dislodged in terms of being able to relax.

“I am in a really different headspace now in terms of being able to step back and say what’s actually going on here? Time Will Kill is much more coming from a place of knowing myself. Even the way we wrote the album and prepared to be in the studio.”

A Galway gig to look forward to is a cause for great excitement.

Hough says that as well as the feeling of coming home, she is particularly looking forward to seeing co-headliners Cable Boy in action, whose dreampop-shoegaze should fit nicely alongside Havvk’s sound.

“We’re making a party of it, and it’s just a great time of the year to be in Galway,” she says.

"A key moment of my childhood is being in Galway in and around the Arts Festival.

"We’ll be coming up to that and the atmosphere will be really good.”