Quarter Block Party : Elaine Howley & Maija Sofia

Elaine Howley Bio Originally hailing from Tipperary Ireland, Elaine Howley is a vocalist, musician and producer who merges an expansive tapestry of experimental, analogue processes with a love of classic songwriting and emotive melody, to create a sound world that is distinctly her own. Immersed in both the experimental music scenes in her adopted home of Cork, and the DIY ethos of Ireland’s alternative rock community, Elaine’s music grew out of years of varied, extensive collaborative practise, performance and experimentation.

She has toured regularly across Europe and the UK as the singer in the acclaimed psychedelic rock group, The Altered Hours, sharing stages with the likes of Fontaines DC, Wooden Shjips, Clinic and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Closer to home, she has played in ambient trio Crevice and folk group Morning Veils.

It was through playing with these groups and performing with the improvisatory collectives The Dark Arts Orchestra and HEX and collaborating with composer Irene Buckley and musician Roslyn Steer that Elaine began to explore vocal layering and manipulation, sampling, stretching and slowing things down to uncanny, enigmatic layers of sound. This improvisatory impulse led to Elaine’s solo debut The Distance between Heart and Mouth, which was released to widespread acclaim in 2022 on Touch Sensitive Records.

With Pitchfork praising the album as “a spectral slow burn that refuses to trip over itself to get anywhere in particular. By absorbing the wisdom of the process, Howley permits her craft to resound deeper than ever”. For her first solo album Elaine used tape to process voice, drum machines and synthesizers, creating rich, analogue textures which work in tandem with her songwriting to weave an intimate sonic tapestry that feels warm and esoteric all at once.

The album was born out of a ritualistic practice of going to her self-built studio in her house first thing in the morning, creating a daily audio-diary as soon as she woke. It’s unsurprising then that the resulting album emanates an intimate welcoming quality; blending deep synths, whisper-soft melodies, echoes, loops, beats and murmurs, recalling the likes of Trish Keenan, Tirzah and Leslie Weiner, while Elaine’s unmistakable voice cracks through the analogue gauze like a crystalline glint of daylight.

Electronic Sound Magazine praised The Distance Between Heart and Mouth describing the record as “nine detailed and hugely captivating vignette’s” while Backseat Mafia observed “The music bristles with experimental edginess but that doesn’t obscure the song craft or the clarity of the statements being made. Elaine Howley’s ‘The Distance Between Heart And Mouth’ bravely tells it like it is and we should be thankful that she does.”

The album is now in its second pressing & has received praise elsewhere, from Pitchfork, The Sunday Times, The Examiner and by Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC6 Music. The Distance Between Heart and Mouth was named The Thin Air Magazine's album of The Year 2022.

Maija Sofia

Growing up semi-feral in a landlocked part of rural Galway, songwriter Maija Sofia's childhood solitude instilled an early devotion to storytelling. Detangling the weirdness, joy and bewilderment of existing, her music alchemises both the intimate and the overwhelming into striking singular songs.

Living nomadically between various places and writing mostly at night, Maija’s lyrics channel nocturnal moments of late-night revelation, carrying a dark folkloric edge and the wistful romance of new wave pop. Paired with a preference for analogue instrumentation and off-kilter arrangements, her sound recalls the innovative worlds of Aldous Harding and Kate Bush or the experimental folk of Shirley & Dolly Collins, but is undeniably her own.

In 2019 her critically acclaimed debut LP, Bath Time, arrived via Trapped Animal Records. Exploring the shadowed histories of sidelined women throughout history and mythology, it garnered widespread praise and a nomination for the RTÉ Choice Music Prize. She followed it up in 2022 with a single ‘O Theremin’ about being haunted by the man who invented both the first mass-produced electronic instrument and the first audio surveillance device.

She is a recipient of the Arts Council’s Next Generation Award, has had her music performed by the RTE Concert Orchestra and has been commissioned to write new music by the National Concert Hall, Sirius Arts Centre, Solas Nua, Dublin Digital Radio and Cork Midsummer Festival. Her poetry has been published by The Stinging Fly, Banshee and elsewhere and she is the host of a mystic experimental Dublin Digital Radio show called Invocations. Her second album will be released in 2023.