Kieran McMahon profile picture

Kieran McMahon

"Falling Deeper Under A Spell"

About Me


I suppose you could classify me as a new old-school songwriter in the vein of Ron Sexsmith and Rufus Wainwright, with roots going back to Nick Cave, Elvis Costello and Leonard Cohen.
Born and reared in Belfast, I've turned into a kind of freelance Irishman who feels as much at home in exile as on the island itself. Like many an Irish musician I ended up in London along the way where I did a lot of live and recording work with various line-ups. After playing a certain live BBC session the DJ Olga Buckley saw fit to call me "the Irish Leonard Cohen". David Gray also made an appearance at my home studio for a few weeks at some point, working on some songs before his White Ladder album. In the end, London left me feeling hypnotized by a vague yet palpable sense of oppression and a change of city was needed. Berlin became the new exile city of choice and remains so today. It's also the place where things have come together for me musically.
I released my first album 'Falling Deeper Under A Spell' in Germany in late 2005 with the help of the Berlin independent label Lassomusic. A self-financed affair, it received glowing reactions from alternative press and radio. A new album is in the pipeline.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 4/24/2006
Band Website: kieranmcmahon.com
Band Members: Kieran McMahon Vocals, 6&12-string acoustic & electric guitars
Carola McMahon Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Organ, Backing Vocals
Arne Paul Neumann Bass Guitar, Baritone Guitar, Lap Steel
Johann von Schubert Drums
Influences:Elvis Costello, Mark Hollis/Talk Talk, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Tim Hardin, Van Morrison, Scott Walker, Love, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra's ballads, Tim Buckley, Ron Sexsmith, Morrissey, George Harrison, Beatles, David Bowie, John Cale, Patrick Kavanagh, Lorca, Liam O'Flaherty, Franz Kafka, Heinrich Boell, Colin Wilson, Elias Canetti, ...
Sounds Like: ''At the point where poetic songwriting, indie folk and catchy acoustic pop meet, Kieran McMahon has just delivered a rather remarkable debut album. The orchestrated, piano- and woodwind-embellished, mostly quite melancholy harmonies on Falling Deeper Under A Spell' (Lassomusic, 05) have an ethereal beauty. On top of that, the Irishman sounds like a cool hybrid of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen". Marcus Baumann | Rundschau Regensburg
'Complex snapshots and poetic lyrics set to a beautiful musical background giving expression to the melancholy experienced by someone eternally searching. Songs such as 'Everybody's A Fool Sometimes', 'The Road I Have Wandered', 'Getting Lost Inside Myself' and the beautiful closing song 'Don't Want The Night To End' are just a small selection of examples of Kieran McMahon's magnificent expressiveness, which is carried, in particular, by the sound of his voice, a perfect hybrid of Tim Hardin and Ron Sexsmith'. Huub Thomassen | www.realrootscafe.com
'All in all, Falling Deeper Under A Spell draws its great quality and surprising maturity from the successful juxtaposition of at times sublime, wistfully-flowing, introspective and extraordinarily touching folk-pop songs, which makes this one of the most beautiful albums in the passionate singer/songwriter pop genre this year'. Thomas Stern | www.b-i-b.de
'Kieran McMahon's debut album 'Falling Deeper Under A Spell' calls Ron Sexsmith to mind. And we're not talking about a boring, third-rate imitation but someone of a comparable musical calibre. The melancholy voice, the resonant vibrato and the feeling for beautiful and melancholy pop melodies are what Ron and Kieran have in common. The CD is completely free of any immature desire for admiration. The listener rather perceives a man with experience observing his environment. The result is authentic, powerful, self-confident and exceptionally good. The last song, 'Don't Want The Night To End', sounds as if it had been borrowed from Neil Young's perfect album Harvest moon. 'Falling Deeper Under A Spell' is highly recommended!' Markus Hillboom | www.musiklivet.com
'Not since the early Mike Scott has a songwriter of Celtic origin delivered a debut album of such originality and powerful emotional impact' Ullrich Maurer | www.gaesteliste.de
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

More Songs Added

The recordings for the new album are now complete. Still has to be mixed though which will hopefully happen early March. I'm looking forward to playing this album live with the band. Meanwhile I've ad...
Posted by Kieran McMahon on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:43:00 PST

The Next Album

hello All,The new album is finally taking shape, the kind of shape I imagined but hadn't until now worked out how to sculpture. The songs were all played live by the band in one room with the focus on...
Posted by Kieran McMahon on Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:16:00 PST