“Louder & Clearer was an attempt to capture the fun, exciting and sometimes explosive sounds that Flor, Tosh, Dave and myself were making while touring the first Stanley Super 800 album. Work started with some writing in August 2004 and ended with some back slapping at the Choice Music Awards in February 2008.

The process featured a cast of thousands and at times looked like it might be a tragedy but like a good Western, it ended with the sound of a bugle and the Cavalry riding in to save the day. I’m really proud of other albums I worked on like The Shanks’ Brang and the original SS800 album, but Louder & Clearer is the zenith of all those efforts and the ultimate realisation of something that started as a seven year old sitting by the radio with fingers poised over the record button.”
Eoin ‘Stan’ O’Sullivan - We Are Noise, 22 December 2012.

On this episode I’m joined by Eoin ‘Stan’ O’Sullivan and Dave Hackett for a deep dive about Louder & Clearer the second album by Stanley Super 800.

We chat about: The Shanks, Cork Music Resource Co-op, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, The Céilí Allstars, No Disco’s Rory Cobbe, The V-Necks, The Young Offenders, Simple Kid, Cork hardcore band Ten Point Rule, Stanley Super 800’s self-titled debut album, touring Ireland, Sofa Records, Sofa Records’ compilations, Stanley Super 800’s 2-Hours-Late EP, Mick Flannery, Dae Kim, working with producer Mark O’Sullivan, Choice Music Price 2007, reforming for the 20th Clonakilty Guitar Festival, and loads more.

“Louder & Clearer is our second album. The first album (Stanley Super 800, 2004) brought a certain amount of success but then it all levelled off, so we decided we better make another. We agreed we’d write and record something that would stand tall with any other album. It took a lot longer than we’d expected but we did it. Check it out, it might free your mind from the shit you’ve got to listen to now. :-)”
Stan O’Sullivan - Cluas (2007)

Eoin “Stan” O’Sullivan has featured on the podcast twice before. Episode 27 focuses on The Prawn Lawn and Brang by The Shanks and he also featured on Bonus Episode No. 5 - “An Draíocht - the music of Sliabh Luachra”, my documentary about trying to track down a load of old vinyl records. Stan in his role as the Sliabh Luachra musician in residence guided me in my quest.

Between these two distinct periods - the demise of The Shanks and his return to North Cork and his reimmersion in the traditional Irish music he grew up around - Stan was the songwriter and frontman of Stanley Super 800.

He was joined in the band by Tosh O’Sullivan on guitar, keyboards and banjo and Flor Rahilly on bass. Later again they were joined by Dave Hackett on drums.

Their debut self-titled album was released in 2004. But for this episode we’re focusing on Louder & Clearer, their second album from 2007. The album was produced by Mark O’Sullivan. Mark recorded under the name The Mighty Quark and his blend of dub, house, jazz and electronica had won him fans and admirers from all circles not least from the electronic giants Leftfield who asked him to remix a track for them.

I remember being really excited when I heard that Mark would be producing Stanley Super 800. The indie and dance worlds colliding, throw a bit of Sliabh Luachra trad into the mix and what could go wrong - absolutely nothing! Mark provides his recollections of working with Stanley Super 800 for this episode.

Upon its release Louder & Clearer received some really positive reviews and was nominated for the Choice Music Price 2007.

“A shout-out for Cork’s best band, their second album offers a winning mix of spiky guitars, shoegazing delights and electro-rock that would be bagging glowing reviews on Pitchfork if it was released by a label-du-jour such as Arts & Crafts. Quite what its hip reviewer would make of the spoken Cork accent that pops up here and there is trickier to ascertain.”
John Meagher - Irish Independent (14 December, 2007

“Inventive, super-soaraway sounds from the outside bet in the Choice bunch. It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for, you know.”
Jim Carroll - The Irish Times (15 February, 2008)

Stanley Super 800 reformed in 2024 for two sold out shows in Clonakilty (20th Clonakilty Guitar Festival) and Cork.

Mark O’Sullivan

Mark O’Sullivan is Associate Professor of Football at the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences. He fronted Cork band The Caroline Shout in the early 90s before emigrating to Sweden. He produced electronic music under a variety of different monikers including: The Might Quark, DK7, Boolaboss and Bacuzzi. He remixed Leftfield - ‘Chant of a Poor Man’ (Mighty Quark Remix) - and has collaborated with everyone from Fish Go Deep (famed Cork house producers and DJs Greg Dowling and Shane Johnson) to A-ha’s Morten Harket. Here he recalls his time working with Stanley Super 800 on Louder & Clearer.

Derek [Leahy] who ran Sofa Records got in touch with me. The recording process for the album had dragged on and they wanted someone from the outside, someone who wasn’t involved in the whole process of recording, to help put it together as a coherent album.  

I guess it was a bit of a curveball choice at the time, considering I wasn't that experienced working with bands. I found it very refreshing to work with this band. In fact, refreshing to work with this particular group of people. I think that there were a lot more than just an indie guitar band. There was a deep, implicit artistic endeavour behind their enigmatic sounds, words, textures and stories, it just needed to be made “louder and clearer”.  

We used a small studio setup that the band had in a rehearsal space in Blackpool. I just jumped on the sounds into Cubase on my laptop and went at it. I wouldn’t say there was a particular vision, it was more of a process of wayfinding together with the band, exploring to learn and discover where we could take this and where it could take us.  

If I wanted a signpost some of the inspiration for the approach to production and mixing that I adopted it would be DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing and some of the live onto tape mixing techniques that I used on Mighty Quark recordings that have their grounding in Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby and Pablo Augusto. Some of the mixes are actually live and could not be repeated.  

The band were very supportive and there were no egos. It was always about serving the essence of the music. For example, I experimented with the drums on ‘Dark Angel’. I sampled parts of the existing drum tracks, reprogrammed them and replayed them through one of the presets I had for the Mighty Quark, which is basically a dub electronic project. The drummer Dave came in to listen and he was 100% behind it on first listen, that gives you great confidence. Flor, Stan and Tosh - they were the same.  

I recall now, as we were producing and mixing the album, I was being reminded of Flann O’Brien and some of the trad sessions with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin that I was lucky to wander into while attending UCC. I heard the enigmatic quirkiness of Cork and its characters and a real love for them. Late night searching for thrills, days of romance, dreams of consciousness and words and melody. “Ag bothántaíocht” could be a good word here.*

I just played ‘Gatecrashing’ for some of my work colleagues and they thought it was a contemporary band. The record still connects. It still sounds good, not because of the production, but because of the excellent lyrics, sounds and textures that the production merely served. 

by Mark O’Sullivan (producer of Louder & Clearer) 

* Visiting houses for pastime or gossip.

For Further Listening/Reading:

Louder & Clearer by Stanley Super 800 is available on Bandcamp.

Keeping Track, Dave Hackett’s podcast is available on Soundcloud.

The Mighty Quark Presents: The King Syndrome Sound, a compilation of tracks originally released on vinyl by Mark O’Sullivan’s The Mighty Quark and Bacuzzi, is available on Bandcamp.

Below: Various reviews and features, click on each image to enlarge.