Electronic music with heart from Elaine Mai

Creating electronic music that has a beating heart, Elaine Mai plays Róisín Dubh on Saturday, May 6.

Over the past few years, the profile of this Dublin-based Mayo woman has steadily risen, thanks to her work with the band Le Galaxie and sublime tracks like Enniscrone.

Enniscrone is great, a real slow-burner. And it was a slow burner in every sense of the word!

“It definitely took about two years,” Elaine says. “It started out as an idea, I was messing around with it one day, and I came up with that lead melody part. I really liked it.” But she normally puts vocals on her tracks and that created a problem.

“For a long time, I was trying to put some on Enniscrone, to write in the normal way I’d done before, and make it into a kind of verse/chorus kind of thing. But it just wasn’t working. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that it didn’t need vocals. I started to shape it as an instrumental, give it that bit more texture. It took a while!”

Elaine will be airing some new music in the Róisín, and one of the tracks that’s sure to feature is The Colour of the Night.

“It’s one that’s very close to my heart,” she says of that song. “It’s about moving through grief and trying to find hope in what can be quite a dark time. So, the colour of the night is that – trying to find the joy or the hope in the darkness, I suppose.”

Is trying to find that joy, perhaps, part of the process for her when it comes to making music?

“Absolutely,” Elaine agrees. “Personally, I find music very cathartic. It’s a really good outlet for me – even it’s just writing the emotion down and getting it out of my head. It’s been really helpful for me, in the past couple of years, definitely.”

When Elaine has an idea for a song or a track, she follows a definite path in terms of realising it.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.