To celebrate the 25th anniversary of their seminal debut album, Brains, The Jimmy Cake will play the album in full – in their first concert in just under a decade at the National Concert Hall this November.<\/p>\n
The band formed in Dublin in the late 1990s and Brains announced their arrival proper. As a nine-piece blending accordion, clarinet, saxophone, glockenspiel, trumpet and DIY percussion around the core of guitars, bass and drums they went on to release lauded efforts such as 2002\u2019s Dublin Gone. Everybody Dead and 2008\u2019s Spectre and Crown before later albums Master (2015) and Tough Love (2017).<\/p>\n
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Parallel to his involvement with The Jimmy Cake, pianist, synthesist, graphic designer and label manager Paul G Smyth has also set himself apart as a singular voice in Europe\u2019s vigorous improvised music scene, working with luminaries such as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Peter Br\u00f6tzmann and Keiji Haino.<\/p>\n
We asked Paul for his choice cultural picks…<\/p>\n
FILM<\/p>\n
I\u2019m being quietly haunted by a film from 2019 called I\u2019m No Longer Here. Written and directed by Fernando Fr\u00edas de la Parra, it follows an exiled Mexican teenager obsessed with slowed-down cumbia music struggling to adapt in New York after fleeing cartel violence. There\u2019s something unspoken in it that has held me since and I don\u2019t know what it is. “I think I know what it is,” my wife said recently as she left the room. That\u2019s helpful, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
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In other filminess, Andrei Tarkovsky\u2019s Nostalghia is my favourite film of all time and when I last watched Cinema Paradiso, I cried during the opening credits, which my children thought was absolutely hilarious. The actual opening credits.<\/p>\n
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MUSIC<\/p>\n
My listening habits here are both constant and scattered, as they always have been. I do like it that way and music serves a lot of different functions, depending on what else is going on around me at the time. In times of great upheaval, I retreat to the classics, which in this house means a lot of Burning Spear, Culture\u2019s Harder Than The Rest, the first B-52\u2019s album, Alice Coltrane, Murray Perahia playing Bach\u2019s French Suites and Sleep\u2019s Dopesmoker. For newer things, John Butcher\u2019s ongoing Last Dream of the Morning trio is incredible. I\u2019ve also been enjoying Barker\u2019s last album Stochastic Drift, an electronic record that manages to have all these icy cold surfaces and yet feel like a living, breathing thing. Really nice. Anything that Sean Shibe puts out into the world is worthy of your ears and time, but Lost and Found might make for an interesting introduction. A recent cross-country drive with David Kitt reminded me how great Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is and my son was born to Alabaster DePlume\u2019s To Cy and Lee a few weeks ago, so that record has jumped up the charts in terms of significance here.<\/p>\n
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BOOK<\/p>\n
I just finished reading Mark Z. Danielewski\u2019s first novel House of Leaves and enjoyed it very much. Now, on a tip-off from aforementioned Kittser, I\u2019m belting my way through Anthony Cronin\u2019s Dead As Doornails, an account of his madcap hangs with Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and Brian O\u2019Nolan (or Flann O\u2019Brien to the rest of us). The drinking started in earnest on page one and shows no signs of letting up yet. How he remembered any of it is a mystery or a miracle. It\u2019s pretty great. The last book that really blew me away, though, was David Foster Wallace\u2019s Infinite Jest, which, perhaps, has more rep than readers. My wife tells me I have a talent for finding potentially enjoyable things, such as reading, and ruining them by making them really difficult. She also refers to the book pile here as my Dead White Men Collection. She\u2019s great. Anyway, Infinite Jest isn\u2019t hard, it\u2019s just very long and has a daft number of footnotes. Totally worth it, even if he is cancelled or whatever.<\/p>\n
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PLAY<\/p>\n
I\u2019m ashamed to admit that there really hasn\u2019t been the level of engagement with theatre that I would have liked over the years, especially since there are several theatrical experiences that have left deep marks on me. Any encounter I was lucky enough to have with the work of Robert Wilson has been transformative. I feel even luckier to have been able to thank him in person. If money was no object, I would love to go to Paris in November for Romeo Castellucci\u2019s production of Faust in the Od\u00e9on. He\u2019s a phenomenal theatre-maker. A few of us in the band are still at a loss for words after his 2000 production Genesi staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival broke all of our heads. You\u2019d be shook, like.<\/p>\n
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TV<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve kind of plugged the TV out here for a bit and it\u2019ll take something special for me to plug it back in. A great Netflix series that I thought was criminally overlooked was 2018\u2019s Maniac with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone. Crazy and brave storytelling that was really smart and still managed to be funny. Highest possible recommendation. From a little further back, Donald Glover\u2019s Atlanta was amazing. I could say all the same things about that. Special mention to the captivating Top Boy as well. Sorry it\u2019s not more up-to-date, but great things are rare!<\/p>\n
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GIG<\/p>\n
Going backwards first, Fever Ray in Amsterdam in 2024 humbled me beyond all reason. Totally humiliating to watch as an artist, in my favourite way. Closer to home, a new hobby is trying not to cry at a Lisa O\u2019Neill show and failing. Junior Brother opened the last one, sounding like Captain-Beefheart-plays-Planxty or Planxty-plays-Beefheart which, either way, is obviously a recommendation. My Bloody Valentine twice in one week was a dream come true last year and I\u2019m wearing the t-shirt as I type. Vinnie from The Jimmy Cake promotes gigs as Enthusiastic Eunuch and has a rake of great stuff coming up before the end of the year. If I had to pick three, I\u2019d say Marisa Anderson in The Cobblestone, Slovenian avant-folk band \u0160irom in Arthur\u2019s, both in September, and the glorious Tr\u00e1 Ph\u00e1id\u00edn in The Button Factory in December.<\/p>\n
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ART<\/p>\n
I could be here all day with this one. I recommend seeking out Emma Roche\u2019s knitted paintings, for starters. A piece like Whatcha Doing Again (2026) captures the day-to-day chaos of parenting so beautifully. I love it. Sheila Rennick\u2019s paintings have the volume turned right up as well. Full of action, hyper, exciting and very real somehow. I also love John Graham\u2019s meditative grid drawings and I\u2019d like a massive Diana Copperwhite painting in my house, thanks very much. Diana, if you\u2019re reading this, I can send you my Eircode.<\/p>\n
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TECH<\/p>\n