‘Cycles’ is the mesmerising new single from self-described ‘aggressively quiet’ indie folk artist How I Became A Wave.
How I Became A Wave is the project of Pat Carey, formerly vocalist and songwriter with the critically acclaimed Cork indie outfit, The Hard Ground.
Cycles’ is the follow-up to 2021’s ‘Fading Out’, which heralded the release of a debut album that had to be temporarily shelved due to personal and professional circumstances. Thankfully, the release of ‘Cycles’ on May 23rd will be the first of a number of singles in 2025 that will culminate in that album getting its long-awaited release this autumn.
‘Fading Out’ had poised How I Became A Wave to be received as one of Ireland’s most exciting new purveyors of indie folk, with exceptional vocals and gentle, stirring melodies that are reminiscent of Villagers, Bon Iver or James Vincent McMorrow.
With ‘Cycles’, Carey uses his contemplative nature and astute songwriting skills to put our human nature to repeat patterns of behaviour under a forgiving microscope.
“Sometimes it’s an easy narrative to believe that repetition of behaviours or circumstances in our lives means that we’re not learning the lessons that life is teaching us. I don’t believe that’s always the case,” says Carey. “I think that challenges that can seem similar or even exactly the same at different points of our life, while the cause and effects can differ greatly. And lessons learned can sometimes be overrated, or maybe over-desired. Life isn’t about ‘figuring it all out’, and life isn’t about eradicating challenges – it’s not something that we can complete or perfect,” he continues.
The lyrics “Feels like I’m done / Feeling like someone / Like I’m nowhere bound” juxtapose with the later verse “Feels like I’ve won / Like I’m still someone / Like I’m lost and found”, while still retaining the cyclical theme of the song, illustrating Carey’s observation that “Sometimes, we can learn a lot more about ourselves by recognising the actions (and mistakes) that we repeat, than by compulsively trying to control and fix them forever.”
‘Cycles’ is accompanied by a lyric video by West Cork artist and graphic designer Megan Clancy, who shot it as a way of documenting part of the process behind the creation of the imagery for the single. Inspired by the idea of imperfect circles representing the theme of cycles, Clancy created a series of images using fibres reclaimed from the sea, twisted, woven and tied into individual circles, and the result is entrancing.
Megan Clancy says: “A cycle represents a repeated journey. While the single artwork is an expression of both repetition and uniqueness, the making of the fibre pieces were filmed purposefully to represent the journey that a still frame couldn’t capture.”
Photo credit – by Celeste Burdon