Tracy reflects on her life in layered debut, ’Mirror’

Tracy Bruen and her band will launch their melodic and layered debut album Mirror in Galway City on Friday, June 9. Recorded in The Forge Studio in the city, the album’s title track features a vocal intro that brings Kate Bush to mind. This sound was something Tracy was never able to realise before. Backing vocalist on the track, Stephanie Swanton, also plays fiddle with Tracy’s band and for logistical reasons, can’t do backing vocals at gigs. But working alongside producer Ray Diamond in studio, Tracy was able to make this happen and add other dimensions, using the studio as an instrument.

“I waited until the track was completed and I was in with Ray, and I just said ‘I have a few ideas here, just let me go nuts for a while’,” the Dunmore woman says. “We’d do an hour of me doing little bits on it, then we’d leave it and I’d come back and layer more on it. I kept on adding more, and the finished results are the ideas that I’ve had in my head for a long time. I just didn’t have the means to bring it to life. I think it’s really important to try and do something different when you’re in the studio. It’s a playground, so why not play?”

Along with Stephanie, Tracy, who now lives in Galway City, is joined by Jay Burke (bass), Adam Downey (drums) and guitarist Pádraic Joyce (Joycey) on guitar. Joycey normally plays acoustic guitar in concert, but when making Mirror he plugged in the electric.

“It was through being in the studio that we found space for electric in our songs,” Tracy says. “This evening we’re rehearsing out it in Ballybane [in Galway City], and it’s our first time getting electric guitar into our live show. I’m excited about that, and it’s a result of having time and space in the studio to let Joycey loose.”

Tracy and her band have taken their time with Mirror – the album was two years in the making.

“My long-term goal was to have it finished it by the start of April,” says the former member of My Fellow Sponges, who is also an actress. “But we realised that some of the tracks weren’t ready, and the idea of rushing it when we had spent so much time on it was just wrong.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.