A familiar face from her stints on television presenting the music show The Heart Of Saturday Night, Loah has finally announced the arrival of her debut album Materia Medica, a project five years in the making. Drawing inspiration from the ancient pharmaceutical textbook that gives the album its name, Loah is reflecting her dual background in music and pharmacy and weaving together influences ranging from 16th-century lute music to contemporary Afrobeats and 808s, all done alongside a wide-ranging cast of collaborators from across the globe.
Raised between Kildare and West Africa, her work is shaped by her love of Irish folk music and literature alongside the rhythms and guitar traditions of West Africa. A childhood spent playing fiddle and violin in Kildare continues to echo through her music, informing the album’s rich interplay between tradition and experimentation. Conceived as a hypermodern collage of sound, the absorbing record challenges traditional ideas of Irishness, femininity and genre, fusing ancient instrumentation with contemporary production to create something entirely singular. Loah channels the experience of being raised between two cultures into a deeply personal yet outward-looking debut that is rooted in history yet unmistakably modern.
I think it’s beautiful that you’re colliding both worlds, the pharmaceutical world and then the world of music, because you could argue both have healing properties. As someone who has a foot in both fields, what would you say about that?
I love the name of the textbook, Materia Medica, I just find the Latin very beautiful. Anyone who finds themselves in that career… I would say the majority of people do so because it’s a vocation, it’s a life-long passion, it does something for the soul. And, you know we have physical remedies for our bodies and we have physiotherapists for our bones and our skin and our muscles. And we have music for our soul.
It’s a way for the soul to express itself and find resonance and peace — catharsis through angry music or, you know, freedom through crazy dancing music or whatever your taste is. But there’s a type of music for everything.
This album has been a labour of love for you, five years in the making. How would you compare your pre-album self to your post-album self?
Well, I certainly learned many ways not to make an album. I made all the mistakes on this record. But it was great. I had a very clear vision for it. And I knew it was going to take quite a lot of time because I had a lot of collaborators in mind in different countries and different genres. So I knew I wasn’t entering a particularly easy process. It probably took a little longer than even I thought [it would]. Sometimes that was down to logistics, sometimes that was down to my perfectionism, getting in the way of letting things go.
But I learned that persistence and perseverance will get you there, they will get the album done. That’s maybe the biggest thing I’ve learned. But I do feel I have a great sense of release and accomplishment now, having completed it.
Do you think you’ve changed personally, working on the album over the course of the five years?
There’s the kind of work side, which means I feel more confident approaching a big project. And I suppose I also got married in that time. So that’s a big change. Maybe because marriage is a project as well and you have to approach it with confidence and humility to know that you need to keep learning.
So, yeah, but most of all, I think the relationships that you get working with people on something is really special, particularly there’s two executive producers that I’ve worked with. Brian Dillon, who’s a member of Meltybrains and also a solo producer as well, called The Line. And then also Danny Ford, who’s a friend from college and we were in my first ever band together. I brought them both on board in late 2021, early 2022 to help me complete the album because I kind of knew that I was struggling with making all these decisions. So, in the end, it ended up being a team effort. I suppose in the past, I’ve always collaborated… But with my own stuff I’ve liked to remain very soloistic. I’ve definitely embraced allowing support.
In this album you’ve constructed a tension between time, because you’re pulling from the 16th century, but you’re also doing the more contemporary. Can you speak on your decision to do that?
Well, I think that’s a direct response to the generation that we’re in of the internet where genre is collapsed for sure anyway — that’s happening in the music world all the time. And cross-pollination of genres of pop artists is happening at a rate that’s so fast, it’s hard to even keep up with.
I’ve played music from all of these different periods of time, whether it’s been through orchestra, traditional music, and then contemporary music as well. But also, on a deeper level, there’s kind of an internal narrative in the album. And I sort of see this character, Isobel, as a bit of a time traveller. So she’s like this mixed race kind of creole person who goes from being in the 1600s to being in the modern world. And she’s kind of like, maybe she has a DeLorean — a Back to the Future car — and she’s travelling through time. And she’s sort of observing what she sees in these different time periods. So there’s Greek mythology, or 16th century music, and then she’s suddenly at an Applebee’s party. It’s kind of abstract and fantastical.
You’ve coined the term ArtSoul for your music, how long have you used that to describe your sound?
Yeah, since the very beginning. I always knew, I was like, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to settle on a genre that makes me feel complete.” I’ve always shifted between musical spaces. And that’s just for better or for worse because, in some ways, it could be easier in terms of the industry to do one thing and just be known for that one thing. But that’s not creatively fulfilling for me. Maybe that creative fulfillment is my higher priority.
You’ve collaborated with a lot of people on the album; what do you look for when you’re looking for a collaborator?
It’s really specific to what they do. So, Logi Pedro, he’s an Icelandic composer. He’s a producer and rapper, but he produced Keep On Moving Up, which is the really obviously Afrobeats song, the other guy to kind of also co-produce that.
And so, I’m really looking at what it is that they do, because I want for them to be doing what their work is, as opposed to me being like, “You do this but can you do this something else for me?” It’s about us being aligned on their particular… For example, Brian Dillon — who did a lot of the production — he’s really great at making soundscapes and creating sound worlds. So, I got him to… He did loads of making the album all sound like one, by using the same soundscape and things. Even if you can’t really fully hear them all the time, they’re there.
And then, Daniel [Forde], for example, is very good at arranging strings. So, he did most of the string arrangements, and he’s got exceptionally good ears. He’s really detail-oriented with his ears, and as am I. So, if I’m hearing something, and I think I’m crazy, I can always check with Dan, because I know he’s hearing it too, I’m not crazy. It’s really about everyone’s individual skills, and what they’re good at.
What would a younger you think about this album, what you’ve accomplished, and where you are now?
I definitely think she’d be shocked. Younger me loved pop music. She loved Kylie Minogue. I loved a lot of pop music, you know, but I also was in the orchestra. So I think that I did start writing… I remember I wrote the first piano piece that I can remember writing was when I was 12. And it’s quite classical. It’s very classically influenced. So I definitely feel like I’m still on that track.
I haven’t really veered too much. In fact, I probably am more into pop rock than I thought I would be. Not that what I make is pop, but yeah. It always surprises me when I write a chorus. Even though everything is on that track. So, yeah, I think I… Yeah, I hope she’d be proud.
One of the things that your album aims to accomplish is a commentary on modern Irish womanhood. What tracks do you think encapsulate that?
There’s nothing obvious that’s like, “This is my statement on Irish womanhood.” However, there are a number of tracks that are about that theme more deeply, and the one in particular is ‘Our Tree.’ I chose a very poetic approach to it, but it’s about the effect of mother and baby homes in the 20th century and the orphans that came from those places, of which, my mother is one. I talk about the scattered seeds and they’re these sort of scattered seeds of human beings. I know so many women who have mothers that are like that, or friends. And so I really have this conversation with all of these feminine goddess characters from different cultures… Like, Bridget, for example, the Irish goddess. She did the first Keen.
Keening is an ancient form of Irish grief ritual. Women used to do that at funerals, Irish women. So they were Keeners and they would do this really expressive, intense wailing, crying, singing, when people would pass from death and they would Keen for days. And it’s a really ancient practice that women have done, always. It’s existed in many cultures, but the name of it, Keening, comes from the Irish word “caoin,” which means to cry. And in our mythology, we have Bridget, the goddess Bridget, and she did the first Keen. That’s how the myth goes, because her son died in battle; she was a warrior as well. When she realized her son died she let out this huge wail. I guess for me, ‘Our Tree’ is really about this generational sorrow, and how that’s built into our mythology — that it can be painful to be heartbroken. The lines are, “We’ve got too much life to break or bend.” So we remain despite that. We’re quite… We’re hard to oppress.
Words: Ruby Larson
Feature Image: Loah 2026 – Ellias Grace
Materia Medica is out now. Loah launches the album with an intimate show in The Sugar Club on June 12th. Tickets: thesugarclub.com
