FEATURE: Spotlight: CMAT — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

CMAT

_________

WITH an album…

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Doyle for Rolling Stone

CrazyMad, For Me due on 13th October, there are a lot of eyes on the incredible CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson). Her second album, it follows 2022’s If My Wife New I’d Be Dead. I would advise people pre-order CMAT’s upcoming album. It is a mature, hook-filled, exciting project from the Irish artist. The Dublin-born wonder has got the seal of approval from artists like Robbie Williams. She has collaborated with John Grant, and she has the ear of stations like BBC Radio 6 Music. Even though she does not need my approval and words, I am aware there are people who may not know about her – and that is why I wanted to spotlight her now. I am going to come to some recent interview soon. Prior to that, it is worth going back to last year and the acclaim and interest around If My Wife New I’d Be Dead. Rolling Stone wanted to find out more about an incredible debut album from an artist already turning heads and being heralded as one to watch closely:

“Describing herself in her Twitter bio as a “global celebrity teen pop sensation”, Dublin-born Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson first gained attention from Irish music stations with ‘Another Day (kfc)’, a relatable tune about crying in a chicken shop over a failed relationship. That humour is a continuing theme on the 26-year-old’s debut album, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, which Thompson describes as “if XTC was writing for The Nolans” and “the Nolans were making that record with Glen Campbell, which would go on to be covered by Paris Hilton.”

But in between the jokes and pop-culture references, Thompson offers searing insights into loneliness and prioritising the sesh over stability, a country twang that’s as comfortable on a disco pop song as it is on a searing ballad, and some of the most engaging songwriting out there right now. Having hit No. 1 on the Irish album charts and taken the CMAT experience everywhere from Leeds to Nashville, it’s starting to look like that self-assigned Twitter bio is the real deal.

For the uninitiated, how would you describe CMAT in one sentence?

Really fun, but with a lot of heart.

How long was the process of putting the album together; was it years in the making or an entirely new concept?

In some ways, the album was in the making for a very long time, but I think that will be the case for every single album I make. There’s always going to be things knocking around for years that took a while to come to fruition. But in terms of the album concept and the arrangement and writing, it was a really quick turnaround. I went away for a month in January 2021 and I wrote two or three songs that were brand new; one of them was ‘No More Virgos’, which I wrote from scratch. Then it was recorded in April, mastered and delivered by August. It was a really quick album to make, but I think that’s because I’ve written so much for so long and there’s been so many things bubbling away on the back burner. I’m a good enough songwriter at this point to know when something is ready and something isn’t ready, and what goes together and what doesn’t. I had enough songs for six albums if I wanted to, but I didn’t do that because it would have been terrible.

There’s also a lot of Irish references in there. Does your Irishness have much of an influence on your songwriting?

It’s not a conscious thing. But because I spent all of my time in Ireland up until a couple of years ago, all my references are going to be Irish and I’m not going to apologise for that. I won’t generalise my references to appeal to an American audience or whatever — if they like it, they’ll just learn what it is. Fiona Apple is always singing about things I don’t know, and then I’ll fall down a Wikipedia hole reading about it. But as much as my Irishness influences me, I won’t apologise for making references that aren’t Irish. A lot of people gave out to me over the Waitrose lyric. I’m sorry, I lived in Manchester for two years.

You put a lot of effort into the visuals, from your videos to your record artwork. How important is that side of things?

I think the visuals are as important as the songs. The two have to marry each other. You can have an amazing song, and then it doesn’t have a music video, or the video is just [singing] “I’m sitting against a studio backdrop, and I’ve got a ring light on, and I’m being sexy”… Listen, don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to be sexy at all times, I do it constantly. But I think if you can get visuals that are inspired by the music and there’s stuff that looks like how the music sounds, you just can’t beat it. A great example of that is — not to blow smoke up their holes — Fontaines D.C.’s album rollout. The visuals are just insane, and they’re on their third album and they’ve just hit their stride. It actually stresses me out how much I already love this record. I’ll be very happy to lose the Choice Music Prize to them next year. I’d be kind of raging if I won over them”.

Back in May, before she took to the stage for Live at Leeds in the Park, DIY chatted with the phenomenal CMAT. Not only is she one of the best rising artists around. She is a live act that always stuns and amazes crowds. A complete artist with many years ahead, everyone needs to be aware of CMAT. Her second album will confirm her as a future legend. A truly wonderful songwriter who I can see headlining festivals and touring with massive artists like Robbie Williams very soon:

“Dare we say it, the level of indie heading to this year’s Live at Leeds in the Park is at least three cans of Dark Fruits. Headlined by Two Door Cinema Club and their trolley load of indie disco bangers, there are also spots for perennial Swedish party-starters The Hives, The Big Moon, Kate Nash, Everything Everything, and many more.

That’s not all: we’ll also be back on site living our best lives over at the DIY stage, which will play hosts to the likes of Cavetown, our Class of 2023 cover stars Crawlers, Sir Chloe and our favourite Irish cowgirl, CMAT.

To mark the occasion - and to celebrate her newest single ‘Whatever’s Inconvenient’ - we had a chinwag with Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson herself…

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Doyle

Hello CMAT! What’ve you been up to recently?

I’ve been making some new videos, I’m getting ready for some shows and I’m actually going to Leeds this evening! I’ve booked myself a lil Leeds holiday because I’m going to see one of the last Yard Act shows on this album cycle, over at the Brudenell. Lolly Adefope is opening for them and I fucking love her, and I’m a big Yard Act fan but I’m an even bigger fan of Leeds. I have this weird infatuation with Leeds; every time I’ve ever played there, it’s been the best gig of the tour. That’s not me being a sycophant; I don’t say this about all the other places.

You’ve also just released your brand new track ‘Whatever’s Inconvenient’. Can you tell us a bit about it?

It’s the first single from my forthcoming album - which is not announced yet, but we’ll get there! - and it’s a song about feeling like an insane person because you keep breaking up with people, being broken up with and you keep changing your mind so drastically about how you feel about people. It’s a song about that feeling of, ‘Is there something wrong with me because I keep doing the worst possible things at the worst possible time in relationships?’ That’s what it’s about!

You’re also about to get back into festival season; what was it like to get your teeth stuck into playing festivals last summer?

Festival season is amazing; I love festival season more than doing my own touring because I’m a masochist. You know, we played Primavera and we had a really bad [set] time, and were warned, ‘You’re gonna go play a rehearsal show in front of maybe five people…’ So we were put in a bit of a shit position, but then 1500 people turned up! They were all wearing cowboy hats and waving Irish flags, and that was really emotional and made me feel really special. Then you play other festivals… We played - name and shame! - Standon Calling last year and the 30 people there hated me. That’s what I love about festival season; it can be so inspiring and amazing, and the next day, so humbling”.

A hugely entertaining and me4morable live performer, I must got and see CMAT play very soon. I am looking forward to the release of her second studio album. CrazyMad, For Me is going to be one of the best of the year. An album that will get plenty of positive reviews. I want to finish with an interview from The Guardian. Earlier this month, they was asked about her upcoming album. Something I did not know is when she gave Charli XCX some constructive criticism about a new track. That kind of bravery – as she was invited to an exclusive listening party where most were fawning over Charli XCX! – is a big reason to respect her:

“I always thought the first album was about the fight between comedy and tragedy,” she says, “and how all the saddest people I’ve ever met are the funniest.” Thompson, 27, could be one of these figures. As a teenager, she led a (somewhat self-inflicted) isolated existence. “I was into the most pretentious things I could get my hands on because all of that was so far removed from Dunboyne, County Meath, where I grew up,” she says. On her first day of secondary school, she prepared by printing out black-and-white pictures of 40s film actresses. “I posted them up in my locker so that everyone could see that I was different.”

It ended badly. A boy spotted her posters and, “like the town crier”, called her a lesbian in front of the school. Thompson, who is bisexual but hadn’t yet realised it, shrugged it off. Instead of spending time with her peers, she spent her school years chatting to people on message boards. “I stayed solidly on the internet for about eight years,” she says. “It’s kind of weird and scary to think about now, but I don’t think that I lived in the real world. And I don’t know that I ever have.”

Things changed when, aged 18, she started a band with her then-boyfriend. Thompson says their five-year relationship was toxic, filled with infidelity and further isolation, this time from friends and family. She turned to alcohol to cope and gained weight: one day, three years in, she didn’t recognise a photo she had been tagged in on Facebook. It led her to quit being a musician. “Being a girl doing music is already a fucking ballache,” she says. “But I felt like I couldn’t be chubby and a woman and play the guitar.”

Depressed and hoping for a new start, she moved to Manchester with her boyfriend, where she worked “as a sexy shots girl” and partied. “I had no friends,” she says. “I might have physically shared a space with people, but I don’t think I talked to anyone for two years.”

An encounter with Charli XCX changed everything. Thompson was one of several Charli fans invited to an in-person listening session at a studio in London, to listen to unreleased tracks and give their opinions. While most were sycophantic, Thompson was “really specific about my criticism; I really went in on her”. After the session, Charli pulled her aside and asked her why she was wasting time by not making music herself. “She looked right through me and said in a slightly mean way: ‘Sort your shit out.’” On the Megabus back to Manchester, Thompson decided to blow up her life: she broke up with her boyfriend, moved back to Dublin and became CMAT.

Thompson’s new album, Crazymad, for Me, exorcises the rage and heartbreak from that period: as she sings on opener California, she’s “harvesting all this misery” for storytelling. “They’re gonna make a movie of it,” she sings, before winking: “Oh no, it won a Razzie!” The Americana tang remains, as does the reverence for country music, but the muscular instrumentation and chest-puffing melodies give her music a new robustness. (John Grant joins Thompson on new single Where Are Your Kids Tonight?, a weary country mid-tempo that fizzes with regret, his gorgeous harmonies lending a weathered texture.) She thought the album might be about forgiving her ex, she says. “But while making it I was like, ‘Fuck that!’ I don’t want to forgive him. I want to be able to move on with my life in the knowledge that I’m allowed to be angry about everything that happened.”

Her anger is laced with wit. On Rent, she stabs at her ex’s incompetence and fakeness, while on the Fleetwood Mac-indebted Stay for Something she winces as she grapples for reasons why she stayed: “Holy God damn you were so annoying / But you had my heart.” Phone Me vibrates with paranoia about adultery (“How can I figure it out / Becky Vardy’s account / I went for dinner with her yesterday”) and on the loose I … Hate Who I Am When I’m Horny, Thompsons cries that she’s into “God, self-destruction and a Britney tune”.

Some have questioned whether her humour and pop culture references make CMAT tantamount to a novelty act. Thompson disagrees. “I think the internet is responsible for my maximalism. I love things that are lyrical and gorgeous, but I don’t see why you can’t also use the things that are around you, too. I think people only feel cringe when something doesn’t relate to them.”

Ultimately, she says, she’s making music for people like her, those who lived insular lives and paid the cost “like queer people or 14-year-old girls who have no friends and weird hobbies. Stewart Lee has a quote where he says: ‘All you need is 5,000 people a year to give you £10 to have a successful career.’ I really like that. I would quite like to be a cult figure.” Given where her career is heading, it might already be too late”.

Go and pre-order CrazyMad, For Me and follow the sensational CMAT. An artist that the music desperately needs and, as a result, has embraced and recognised as a star in the making, go and check out her wonderful music. I thought I had included her in my Spotlight feature before now. It was an oversight on my part that I wanted to correct now! The tremendous CMAT is showing why Irish artists are so important and should be getting a load of attention. There is no doubting the fact that she is…