Brooding party girls rejoice: your new pop idol is here. She’s Morgan MacIntyre, or ‘Morgana’. Previously one half of folk duo Saint Sister, the Dublin-based singer has struck out on her own with her debut EP Party Killer, with its melodramatic vocals, Italo disco and 80s synth pop fusion uniting prima donnas and women behaving badly everywhere.
Speaking on the work, Morgana recounts, “Going solo was difficult at first, you don’t have the stability of knowing someone’s got your back.” Nevertheless, sold-out headline shows at Dublin’s Button Factory and London’s Lexington, as well as touring with CMAT and Dermot Kennedy last year testify to a strong start as a soloist. “I still like to have community. It’s why I could never move to London, for example. I like to be a big fish in a small pond.”
Party Killer was two years in the making: the product of both a personal and musical evolution. “I used to be a people pleaser, and that the best way to make music was to be introverted, not giving too much of yourself away. But I’m shaking that off now.” When Morgana started gigging solo, some of those tendencies returned. She documents them in her first single “I’ll Cry When I’m Dead”, a lamenting ode to staying too late at the party and the all-too-familiar emotional spiral that follows.
“For ages I wasn’t consuming art, and it meant I was so self-conscious of my body on stage – what it was doing and how it was moving?” What did Morgana need to escape this funk? ‘[To] see women behaving badly.”
Now, she’s fixed on perusing her “unhinged drama queen” persona. “I’ve done good gigs, I’ve done bad ones,” she says, “now I just want the weird ones.” She further explains that, having pushed herself out her own comfort zone, it’s her audience’s turn, so her live shows indulge in the “slightly deranged”. “I like to push the limits of what you can do with a gig. You’re not in a theatre, so everyone’s focus isn’t always on you. My challenge is keeping their attention even when they’re at the bar getting a drink.”
Morgana has experimented with some creative solutions. One was therapy role play: “In between songs, I interacted with a pre-recorded voice playing my therapist. But as the show progresses, the therapist becomes worse, and I become more unhinged.”
Props are also within her repertoire: “I’ve got a ball helmet and a big orb. I’m still working on what I’m going to do with them. I want every show, even if it’s just gigging to 200 people, to feel like thought has gone into the art direction.” Morgana is undeniably a woman with a vision. The music video to “Party Killer”, a disco delight with a distinct emotional pang, stars the singer as she chases friend and comedian Killian Sunderman around a manicured estate. “I really like the home invasion genre,” she admits, “I don’t know what that says about me.”
Morgana is sure of one thing, however: “I want my music to convey heavy, really dramatic emotion, but worn quite lightly,” says MacIntyre. “I want to be on the floor one minute, and then up dancing again seconds later.”
Morgana’s next run of live shows will be commencing this autumn, with headline shows at London’s Moth Club on the 14th October, and The Academy, Dublin on the 19th. Her latest single “I’m Not Going Anywhere”, was released this week (24th September).