Microdisney created a sublime world of contradictions with the juxtaposition of a dreamy atmospheric sound with sardonic lyrical concerns of love and peace. The duo of Cathal Coughlan and Sean O'Hagan met in Cork, Ireland and began playing around with various other musicians developing their own sound that combined O'Hagan's distinctive guitar with Coughlan's passionate brogue. They recorded tracks for Kabuki Records (including the singles 'Helicopter of the Holy Ghost' and 'Pink Skinned Man') before relocating to London and getting signed to Rough Trade Records. O'Hagan remembers: "By that point we’d dispensed with just about everybody in the band and we had this two-piece. We’d moved onto this very strange way of writing music, which was based around a string machine and a guitar, which even now I can’t fathom. And we had this very strict regime of writing, where Cathal would manage to get out of college and I’d finish work, and we’d meet at the flat in the evenings. I think I gave up work eventually and said ‘This is what I’m going to do’. But it was very strict, we wrote religiously pretty much every day and that’s how the first records (particularly 'Everybody Is Fantastic') got written...We were very excited to be recording, because we had this period when we arrived in England – we literally just came, hadn't thought twice about it, just bought the tickets and off we go. It was like a kind of medieval departure or a nursery rhyme, you know sticks with fabric tied at the end! And then there was this period when the full reality of actually – when people say nice things to you on the telephone it doesn't mean they're actually going to do them, which is what we believed, that it was all going to just happen like that! We had this daily routine, we'd just go down to the telephone box with a fistful of 10ps and badger people every single day from various record companies. Eventually we booked a little rehearsal studio in Walworth Road which was completely alien to us. We went to this strange place every day called the Elephant and Castle which was completely peculiar! The album was really rehearsed for two weeks and then we went into the studio. I really enjoyed those few weeks when we made that record, because it was almost like the promise had been fulfilled. And (producer) Steve Parker was great because he was this very trusting guy. I mean, he did make me record all of my guitar on a Walkman...Some great moments. We'd taken this strange music with space from Ireland, but then we discovered that you can actually fill the space up reasonably intelligently. 'Dreaming Drains', which we wrote very close to recording – we'd been listening to a lot of country music, and we thought, 'How can we put this on the record?' And we kind of did, that was definitely the idea, even though we weren't stupid enough to try to record a country song...It was a time when Rough Trade was probably going to be a very important label, Geoff Travis's world was expanding so we didn't have a lot to do with him, but looking back we expected things and, in fairness to a lot of people, we managed to get them. I think it was Geoff's idea to put out '...South African Bastards' as well. And that was music that was recorded in a cottage in the west of Ireland. So the order of things was quite strange – 'Everybody Is Fantastic' was this quite well-recorded record, the next release was this incredibly oddly recorded one, and I think that probably led to a sense of disjointedness, it certainly confused us."
Coughlan considers: "['Everybody Is Fantastic'] got written in two stages as I recall it, there was writing we did in Cork...we put a couple of singles out on Kabuki, the first one did ok in an indie way and the second one did really well, it got on Peel. He played 'Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost' a little bit but ‘Pink Skinned Man’ was the one he really played. And we thought it was Christmas. We came to London, and proceeded to rewrite all of our songs in the space of about three weeks...Geoff Travis was a partner in the label we recorded it for, which just about paid the bills for the studio we recorded it in eventually, and then they didn't want to put it out, and he had made a statement along the way that if that label didn't do it then Rough Trade would, so we held him to it. Or rather Sean did, because I'd forgotten that he said it! Which was kind of lucky. But we had a lot of friends in the warehouse at Rough Trade...It was really hard to keep going after we did the initial recording. It was just this long winter. We did a little more recording, with John Porter, but then there was more of nothing. And Rough Trade was ballooning in size because of The Smiths ... I have a lot of regrets about the way we went about that, particularly in how we recorded it. We could have overcome the writing idiosyncrasies and maybe the delivery but there were some decisions around drum machines which I’m largely responsible for ... For the songs, yes there is some sort of naïve thing, there is the yearning about them and things that just stick in my head."
'Everybody is Fantastic' made it to number six on the UK indie album chart. It and its companion piece, the compilation of early tracks 'We Hate You South African Bastards!' (later retitled as 'Love Your Enemies' ), have all but disappeared into obscurity; yet their earnest power still resonates.
www.bubbyworld.com/microdisney/
http://www.cathalcoughlan.com/
Idea 2:53
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRB4Gog0mV4
Escalator in the Rain 3:36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g3sT8CdREE
Dolly 3:20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Urt5_Sny9Y
Dreaming Drains 2:49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANrRbuFdW3M
I'll Be a Gentleman 3:32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHdOedFFQoQ
Sun 3:14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_UJDG7Q1QM
Sleepless 2:35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niT-KqmDmOQ
Come on Over and Cry 3:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvqXfAsg98Y
This Liberal Love 3:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abLVARCa-sc
Before Famine 3:43
http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Moon/3cqEVN?src=5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9rznq8HvnI
'Everybody is Fantastic' full album:
http://www.last.fm/music/Microdisney/Everybody+is+Fantastic
Everybody Is Fantastic from Microdisney on Myspace.
1 Idea 2:53
2 A Few Kisses 3:16
3 Escalator In The Rain 3:36
4 Dolly 3:20
5 Dreaming Drains 2:49
6 I'll Be A Gentleman 3:32
7 Moon 3:02
8 Sun 3:14
9 Sleepless 2:35
10 Come On Over And Cry 3:06
11 This Liberal Love 3:16
12 Before Famine 3:43
13 Everybody Is Dead 3:08
14 Dear Rosemary 2:31
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