MUSIC Windings to play Bar Ritz

Sun always rising for Windings


Ciara Moynihan

Giveamanakick frontman and founder, Steve Ryan, is returning to the world of record releases and touring. After a five-year hiatus since the release of their debut album, his band Windings released their second album, ‘It’s Never Night’, last Friday, October 8.
To promote the ten-track collection, the Limerick lads are taking to the road for a nationwide tour, stopping off in Castlebar’s Bar Ritz on Saturday night, October 30. In a sign of the band’s ever-burgeoning popularity, they are flying over to New York in the middle of the tour to play in the city’s CMJ Music Festival.
Ryan (pictured, first left) began Windings in 2005 as a side project, a vehicle to vent his musical alter ego, while still busy with Giveamanakick. In late 2009, he realised that Giveamanakick had achieved much more than he and collaborator Keith Lawlor had ever even dreamed of seven years previously, playing and partying across the world with some of their all-time favourite bands and releasing three albums to critical acclaim. Ryan and Keith called time on Giveamanakick, with Ryan deciding to focus on Windings, while Keith embraced life as a rather successful corporate creative type.
Ryan’s story began when he was delivered kicking and screaming into a family of musicians and music lovers. Despite a strong musical heritage and a family full of very talented people, Ryan was involved in a plethora of questionable school garage bands.
The Windings story started in 2005, when Ryan released the self-titled debut album on Out On A Limb Records to a multitude of positive reviews from music media and fans alike. Invitations to perform at many festivals, including Electric Picnic, poured in.



Three years later, long-time collaborator and friend Liam Marley became a fully fledged member of the band, bringing his dynamic multi-instrumentalism and song-writing skills to the table. Liam’s influence was instantaneous and the Windings sound began to evolve. In 2009, a further two Winders arrived – Aaron Mulhall taking on drum duties and Patrick O’Brien bringing in the guitar and banjo.
The songs on ‘It’s Never Night’ (which is produced by Tommy McLaughlin, who has worked with Villagers and Cathy Davey) swing from finger-picked cosy pop tunes like the opening track, ‘Lil Hands’, to the folksy recession ballad ‘Song of the Doomed’, to the gorgeously soft and warm ‘Old like J’ with its shades of Badly Drawn Boy, to the drum- and lead-guitar heavy ‘Poor in the Mouth’ and ‘You Did’, which is reminiscent of The Lemonheads. As one reviewer said about the album, ‘A long time coming, but worth the wait - and then some.’ Couldn’t agree more.