Loughrea native Ultan Conlon, who has just released his impressive debut album Bless Your Heart, plays The Crane Bar on Tuesday, December 22 as part of the Singer And Their Songs series. Conlon has been working on Bless Your Heart for the past two years and is delighted that it is being finally released, after what wasn’t exactly a pain-free process.

“It feels great,” he says. “It was actually finished [last year] but we turned around and recorded a lot of it again.”

Ultan explains why he decided to start from scratch all over again on this album with invaluable assistance from his friends and co-producers Raoul Terzi and Eoin McCann.

“It just wasn’t very fluid,” he says. “We recruited a bass player and a guitar player and we started to play more as a band. We got a feel for the songs more so we went back to the drawing board with a lot of them.”

Given the amount of time he spent working on the album which deals mostly with matters of the heart and relationships, was it ever difficult for Ultan to see the wood from the trees?

“Of course it did – I was lost in there!” he recalls. “A couple of times we nearly stopped it altogether. Me and Raoul spent a lot of time together and, as most people know, put two people in the one place for a long time they’re going to get on each other’s nerves. We still worked very well through it; he was very reasonable. I don’t know if I was!

“It’s a real up and down process,” continues Ultan. “The whole music business seems to be, for me anyway. In a week you might get a couple of bits of good news and you might be flying high. Then the rest of the week, you might be struggling, be it some press or getting stuff done.”

And the recording of the album wasn’t without tragedy, with one of the key participants not being around to witness the completed work. He was Italian composer Carlo Gargioni, a good friend of Raoul’s, who was responsible for the beautiful string arrangements on Bless Your Heart, bringing years of experience from his home country. Carlo, who had been sent some of the songs and really liked them, composed the strings and piano arrangements in Italy, and then he flew to Ireland for a week to orchestrate the musicians”

The lush arrangements on the CD are a testament to his talent, but tragically, he died before the album was completed.“He was only 41; he died very suddenly,” Ultan says. “We got a call in the studio one day. He got rapid leukaemia and within two days he died. It was very, very sad.”

Whatever about the delays and difficulties in recording the album, there was no hesitating on Ultan’s part when it came to picking up the finished CD.

“I drove up to Dublin,” he says. “They were going to deliver it but I said no; I wanted to get my hands on it as quick as possible. Some of the songs – not all of them – had been hanging around for years and it was good to give them a home. There’s been a few reviews and everything’s been positive so far. I’m happy with that.”

The mixing of an album is usually done by a third party but, being the hands-on artist that he is, Ultan Conlon decided to do it himself.“

Myself and a friend of mine from Loughrea, Kenneth Keary, decided to mix it” he says. “First of all we were going to get it mixed in New York but I pulled it back; because of the distance thing.”

Completing Bless Your Heart may have taken a long time but Ultan is deservedly happy with his meticulous approach.

“We were building it as we went along. I enjoyed the whole process; I didn’t fancy just going in [to a studio] for two weeks and throwing something out there.”

A turning point in the making of Bless Your Heart came after a productive trip to Connemara, following a bleak period.

“We were recording in a couple of houses in Galway and when we were going to give up a friend of mine gave us his house in Roundstone for three days,” Ultan explains.

“I pretty much begged Raoul to come out there and give it one more shot. We just layered down tracks; we actually got five of them done. When we heard them back we said ‘right, we know where it’s going now’. That was only about 12 months ago; after that it came together much quicker.”

The elements and one of Ultan’s favourite singers were also influential at that time.

“We did the Neil Young trick on it – he only records on the full moon,” says Ultan. “That weekend there was a full moon and my sister, who’s a big Neil Young fan, said ‘this weekend there’s going to be one’. We had that in our head, ‘get out there quick, it’s a full moon’.”

Others who have influenced the Loughrea man include Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, John Martyn, REM, Van Morrison, Ryan Adams, Ron Sexsmith, Richard Hawley and The Stunning.

The Will was the first taste Ultan gave listeners from his new album. Why did he choose this track?

“Some of the songs on the album are four and a half, five minutes. So it was more of a practical thing; I wouldn’t be known anywhere so I doubt they’d put on a five minute track on the radio. The Will is your standard verse/chorus; it’s quite catchy. I just thought as the first free download it was a good representation.”

Bless Your Heart is not a haphazard collection of songs; it’s a cohesive record that deserves some serious exposure.

“I’m happy with the thing as a whole,” Ultan says. “There’s one called The Boy Without. It’s pretty stripped down. I just played the acoustic and did some percussion and backing vocals. It’s kind of an eerie song.”

As well as his show next month in The Crane, Ultan Conlon and his band are also booked into play shows in Dublin, Clonakilty and Kilkenny, giving Bless Your Heart the airing it merits.

“I’ve a concept for the next one but I still won’t rush it out because we spent so long working on this,” he says. “I’m going to spend a year pushing it as much as I can.” Bless Your Heart is available from www.ultanconlon.com. Ultan plays The Crane Bar on Tuesday, December 22. Admission is free. Doors 9pm.