To spend time with the music of Eoin French, the Irish artist who recorded as Talos, and who has died after a short illness, was to be transported to a hauntingly beautiful parallel dimension. A former lecturer in architecture at University College Cork, French had an intuitive grasp of the dynamics of great songwriting – to which he added a talent for eerie, otherworldly pop. He created his own dense and mysterious sonic hinterland, starting with his 2017 debut, Wild Alee, and concluding with the 2022 swan song Dear Chaos, and his loss is a blow to the Irish alternative scene.
French was one of those rare musicians who take familiar influences and turn them into something fresh and new. If steeped in the esoteric indie dirges of Cocteau Twins and the left-of-field folk of Bon Iver, he was also shaped by more mainstream figures such as Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon. Yet he never sounded like anyone other than himself, his often ominous soundscapes filtered through a raw and vulnerable singing voice – a juxtaposition that led the New York Times to praise his “taut, chilling complexity”.
[ Cork musician Eoin French, known as Talos, dies aged 36Opens in new window ]
He didn’t ever fall into the trap of repeating himself. In 2017 he spoke of his ambition to continuously move forward as a writer: “I’ve tried to draw on as wide a range of influences as possible rather than going back to the same old thing, which runs the risk of boring people.”
Nobody was ever bored by Talos. They were instead mesmerised by a repertoire that pulsated with a majestic ache, yet had the intimate feeling of secrets whispered between friends. It was fitting that he would launch his 2019 album, Far Out Dust, at Dublin’s Pepper Canister church. His songs possessed an almost choral quality, their sense of wonder and yearning verging on the spiritual. He also composed for the stage and, in 2022, was nominated for the best-soundscape prize at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards for his work on Emmet Kirwan’s Accents.
His career was marked by twists of fate. Born on Cork city’s northside, he was set to move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in architecture when his girlfriend came down with tuberculosis. “I was left in no man’s land,” he said. “I stayed in Cork. I suddenly had nothing to do – so I decided to start something.”
That something was Talos, a project that emerged out of a time of uncertainty when all he had was songwriting. “I went back to old-school stuff. Tim Buckley was someone I was introduced to … Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon … I was getting into that. At the same time, I always had an ear for very modern references – These New Puritans, Alt-J and the like.”
French, who divided his time between Cork and Reykjavik, always had a life outside music. He played rugby with Sunday’s Well in Cork city and tutored at Cork Centre for Architectural Education. He was, however, obsessive about his craft. In December 2019 he deleted an entire album’s worth of recordings, believing they did not meet the high standard set by Far Out Dust. Going back to the drawing board, he made the magnificent Dear Chaos – forged, he would tell Hot Press, in the darkness of the pandemic.
“We all went through a lot of s**t over the last two years, but the album became a companion,” he told the magazine. “When things were tough, it allowed me to pour sadness or happiness into it … whatever it might have been. It actually became like a life raft.”
[ Talos: moments of inspiration built on sound foundationsOpens in new window ]
Those songs will continue to give his audience something to cling to through whatever challenges life may present. As they mourn his death, fans of Talos will take solace in the extraordinary body of work left behind: music that ripples with darkness, pulsates with wonder and, above all, is illuminated by French’s humility and humanity.
