Sleepless Street’ - new album by Pete Doran

‘Sleepless Street’ is the new album from local musician, 26-year-old Peter Doran from Clonmore, who has been playing music for as long as he can remember.The launch takes place in the Stables on Friday, September 10, with support from another local band Arrow in the Sky and Tullamore’s Dave Peyton.‘Sleepless Street’ is the second album from Peter, who released ‘Wood’ in 2006, and this week the Westmeath Examiner caught up with the young singer songwriter to find out what he has done differently with this sophomore release.“As opposed to the first album, some people have said it’s a little bit simpler musically, I think something I did with the first album was overload it completely,” admits Peter.“Recording-wise I had so many different ideas and I thought each of them were going to be great and you throw in everything together,” he continues.“I’m still very proud of the first album but I think it’s something I’ve learned over the years, probably with writing and recording, is that less is more, so I’ve tried to pull back a little bit with this one.“Sleepless Street is a little bit more straightforward song-wise, and more focused on melody. You know, if you’ve one strong melody let that be your thing.”His music has been compared to other troubadours such as David Grey and Damien Rice and the majority of his music is acoustic based. However there is a lot of electric on the album this time around, with a little bit of piano added in for good measure.In fact Peter will make his live debut on piano, which he only took up two years ago, at the launch on September 10. He will also have local musicians Canni Bruton, Barry Coyle on drums, Paul McGinty on electric guitar, Ger Toal on chello as his band on the night.So how did he find the whole process behind making ‘Sleepless Street’?“It takes a long time, we were recording for a long time, I think probably well over a year,” says Peter.“We started demoing stuff and we starting doing some things afresh, re-recording it and redoing it better. It’s funny how long it takes to get an album out there, I mean it’s been finished since May between mastering the album and getting artwork finished, its a long process no matter what way you do it, so I’m looking forward to it being out and about.”Peter has been playing music since he was twelve-years-old, and writing his own stuff since he was eighteen, so how does he feel about the songs on the album?“To my mind the songs are stronger, the recordings are definitely better, there was kind-of a completely different recording process this time,” he explains.“The first album was all done locally, with this album we did a lot in Grouse Lodge, some in Vee Bee Studios. I also worked with an Italian producer and did a lot of recording in Italy in Vienna. And finally to London at Abbey Road Studios where the cd was mastered. Geographically we’ve been all over with this album!“I’m really proud of how it turned out and of the sound quality on this album. It’s been fun and I’m excited about the launch.”The album is available online from iTunes and from local music shops in Mullingar.Also, check out the newly refurbished and decorated www.peterdoran.com