A CONVERSATION WITH… PETER DORAN
We talk to Peter Doran about his latest album, All the World is Running on a Mystic Code, as he invites listeners into an expansive sonic journey where homegrown experimentation, lyrical depth, and mystical wonder converge in his most personal and playful album yet.
All the World is Running on a Mystic Code is such an evocative title. What does the “mystic code” represent to you?
I imagined the Mystic Code to be the operating system of the Universe. It's akin to a computer code that runs a machine. We are the machine, or part of it at least. The Mystic Code is what we are all operating on... or running on... people, plants, animals, planets and stars. It's a mysterious, magical and playful thing. It's something like The Force in Star Wars or the Universal consciousness. I remember having the feeling that there was some grand order to the whole world, but damned if I could figure it out or put a finger on it. It's a slippery thing, the Mystic Code.
This album feels more expansive and experimental than your previous work. What drove you to push your sound in new directions?
That experimentation was a direct result of having, for the first time, my own fully operational home studio to work in. This album is the first one recorded in this studio. All of a sudden, I had time and freedom to experiment. The technology has come on so much now that there are really great plugins and audio toys available to play with. Sonic toys that can elevate your work and bring it to new places. Musicians have been using these tools and machinery to their advantage for decades in one way or the other, but this felt like the first time that I had time to dig a bit deeper into that synthy world. As well as having access to the technology, it just felt like the right time artistically (after five albums) to be a bit more playful and weird. I was excited to hear different sounds in my songs.
You produced most of the record yourself. What was it like being at the helm, both creatively and technically?
I enjoyed it a lot. It was nice to have that extra bit of responsibility. There was no real pressure as I was making this thing at my own pace in the middle of nowhere with no one expecting anything from me. It's strange because sometimes I think that I have no idea what I'm doing on the technical side of things. But then I have to remind myself that I have been recording music in one way or another for about thirty years, so I do have some experience. I definitely learned a lot in the making of the album. If anything, it deepened my love for the art of record-making. It was a fun process, and the deeper I got into it, the more I was getting excited about what I was hearing back through the speakers. That gives a lot of energy to keep on pushing forward with more confidence. When all the recordings were done, I sent four of the songs to a pro-mixer in Dublin to make sure they got the best treatment they could get. I then mixed five of the songs, and I'm pleased with how they turned out. Clockwork, then, was mixed by my friend and collaborator Nicky Brennan.
How did the locations—Westmeath, Kildare, and Vienna—influence the album’s tone or storytelling?
The bulk of it was recorded here in my studio in Westmeath. The fact that I am in a pretty remote area, I think, definitely influenced the feel of the album. For me, at least, to make good recordings (in this genre), you have to be pretty relaxed in body and mind when the performances are going down. Any sort of stress or tension, or nervousness, will find its way into the recordings. So having this space, with nothing around but fields and nature, really helped facilitate good performances.
‘Clockwork’ is one of the album’s most personal tracks. How did you approach translating such a charged, real-life moment into a song?
I saw someone say recently that art is just changing experiences from one medium to another. So I guess with that song, I was literally taking that charged moment and translating it into the medium of song. I can't say that I thought too much in advance about how I would approach it, as it was kind of already happening. When something is really filling up your mind and you're lit up to a certain degree, it doesn't take that much to get it to spill over onto the page. The craft, then, is just following your intentions as best as possible and getting it all to work on the page and in your mouth when you're singing it.
On ‘Never Say Goodbye,’ you explore maritime imagery and folklore. What draws you to the sea as a metaphor?
I guess, like anyone, it's the power and scale and the unpredictability of the sea that draws me to it. The oceans hold so much life and mystery that we will probably never know the full depth of it. There's something fascinating about the fact that once you go out there, you are at its mercy. You have to both surrender to it and trust it in equal measure. In that song, it's the superstitions of the old sailors, too, that I was fascinated by... how they were always looking out for strange signs to determine if they were bound for catastrophe or safety.
‘Marguerite’ touches on a local historical tragedy. How do you balance honouring a real story with your own artistic voice?
That song was a co-write with a great songwriter friend of mine called Jimmy Broder. We were both very careful in handling the story with extreme care. We wanted more than anything to tell the story and to honour 'Marguerite's short life in as true and pure a way as we could. Marguerite was a young girl who suffered terrible burns when her nightdress caught fire. She passed away a few short weeks after the incident. This all happened in December of 1899. Her Grandmother, whose signature can be seen on the child's birth certificate, lived in the house where I recorded the album. We took the few essential details we had and built our story around them. There was one local neighbour who kept horses, and he was the only one who could give Marguerite some small relief or joy. He becomes the other main character in the song, and we place him as a sort of healer. "Marguerite, I brought you something for the pain". So yes, Jimmy and I were combining our artistic voice and song-craft to try and do our best by that poor young girl.
Were there any songs on the album that took you by surprise, perhaps shifting in meaning or sound during the recording process?
‘The Lover's Wheel’. It started as a straight-ahead sort of folk-pop song. It was pretty good, actually and had a catchy enough melody for the chorus. For some reason, I got a little bored with it during the writing. It felt a bit like I had done it before, so I wanted to blow it up completely and start again. As it happened, before I began work on this album, I was working on a collection of instrumental pieces. I don't know where the idea came from, but I had the notion to speak the words of this new song over one of the instrumental pieces. I tried it myself, but wanted to hear someone else's voice there instead. So I asked Jimmy (Broder) if he would take a shot at it. He called over, and we got it done in an hour or so. It's one of my favourite pieces on the album now. It's kind of weird and jazzy and came about in an unconventional manner, and I just love that. Having the home studio here makes it super easy to just try out things... If they work out, that's great, but if not, it's not real stress or a waste of money on recording time.
You worked with incredible musicians, including members of Picture This and Hozier’s band. What did those collaborations bring to the record?
Fiachra Kinder, who drummed on the album, played with Hozier in the early days, alright. He played drums on ‘Take Me to Church’, which was a pretty massive hit. Nicky Brennan has played in huge stadiums and arenas all over the world with Picture This. I have known him since about 2011. Both of these guys are very dear friends and incredible people and musicians. Fiachra pops up all over the record, anywhere you hear a drum or gorgeous percussive element, that's him. He elevated everything he played on, and the album is so much the better for his involvement. Nicky was the producer in chief for ‘Clockwork’, and he did an incredible job getting that over the line. His attention to detail, from guiding vocal phrasing and melodies down to the tiniest details in the final mix, was insane. These are special guys, and I am so thankful to have them in my orbit.
How did your ongoing partnership with Jimmy Broder shape the musical identity of this album?
Jimmy's songwriting chops are world-class. He paints such vivid pictures in his writing. "Think of the movie" is something he says a lot... so when you're writing, the listener should be able to see the scene as clearly as if it were in a movie. His tastes also tend to lean a little towards all that is dark and strange and wonderful. I've known Jimmy since I began writing songs, so it was such a thrill to write together on this record. It was playful and easy, and quick, and the album is better for his influence and involvement. He said to me a few times during the recording process, "This is where you break away from the classic singer-songwriter album and go somewhere different". So he was always pushing me to follow my instincts and try new things this time out.
The blend of folk, ambient textures, and alt-pop moments creates a unique listening arc. Were there any specific artists or albums you were listening to during the writing phase?
I can't rightly recall... probably a lot of The Felice Brothers, Julian Lage, and Wilco.
You created a companion film for the album with filmmaker Conor English. How does visual storytelling enhance your music?
It's the combining of art forms that I love. The blend of the cinematic and the musical. Sound and Vision. Conor is another serious talent, with a great eye and imagination. We both have a similar sensibility, and it was another fantastic and playful collaboration. We still need to release that full film into the world. I like that much of the film was made close to home here, so it shows the viewer some of the world where the music came from.
How did you decide which tracks to feature in the film, and did performing them in nature shift how you connect with the songs?
‘M'ystic Code’ I wanted on there as it's the album opener and (sort of) title track, so it was important that it was part of the film. When Conor heard the album, he immediately had a vision for ‘The Lover's Wheel’ with Jimmy around the campfire, like an "Irish Cowboy". Jimmy looks amazing in it, I think and adds so much character. I can't remember who suggested ‘Out in the Wild,’ but I'm glad it is included. It was all decided pretty quickly, I remember, and then we ran with it. When it came time to edit it, Conor used parts of ‘Willow’ (the acoustic instrumental track) to kind of knit the various scenes together. I also took other little sonic elements from the album sessions and manipulated them in different ways and worked them into the soundtrack.
After two decades of music-making, what does All the World is Running on a Mystic Code represent in the larger arc of your career?
It's probably too early to tell, and maybe not for me to say at all. It's certainly a piece of work that I am very proud of. In years to come, I will definitely be able to place the album very directly to this period in my life when the kids were small and we were working on the house. I have a terrible sense of time passing, and the only thing that gives me some structure is the albums I've recorded. I can trace each one to a certain season of my life, and that is no small thing at all.
