Born in Cork, Eire, Coughlan brought a distinctive lyrical outlook that enlivened the British independent music landscape throughout the 1980s and 1990s, first guiding the wayward pop group Microdisney and later fronting the more abrasive Fatima Mansions. He also issued two albums via the extravagant Bubonique side project, enlisting associates including Irish comedian Sean Hughes for several decidedly unamusing musical parodies. After Fatima Mansions issued 1994’s Lost In The Former West, the band entered indefinite suspension amid a protracted lawsuit against Coughlan’s American label Radioactive Records. During this period the singer managed to complete Grand Necropolitan, an uneven set that vanished from view with scant promotional effort from either the artist or his company.
Although he reportedly maintained a steady output of new material, the sole Coughlan release to surface during the late 1990s was the soundtrack to the 1997 Irish feature The Last Bus Home, directed by Johnny Gogan. Once the legal dispute reached resolution, Coughlan joined the Cooking Vinyl roster for 2000’s Black River Falls, a collection centered on introspective personal songs such as the title track and “Cast Me Out In My Hometown.” The next year he scored another Johnny Gogan picture, The Mapmaker, while making his stage debut in François Ribac’s contemporary opera Qui Est Fou? He simultaneously finished work on his subsequent studio album. Issued in 2002, The Sky’s Awful Blue confirmed that Coughlan’s frequently sardonic and pessimistic outlook remained undiminished, even as traces of his film-scoring experience surfaced in the atmospheric touches across several pieces.
Coughlan’s following endeavor, the continually developing song cycle Flannery’s Mounted Head, received its premiere in Cork during September 2005 and incorporated contributions from video artist Rob Flint together with multi-media artist Linda Quinlan. The subsequent Foburg drew upon portions of Flannery’s Mounted Head and was tracked with the Grand Necropolitan Sextet, whose members included James Woodrow on guitar, Daniel Manners on double bass, Nick Allum on drums, Audrey Riley on cello, Eddy Jay on accordion and guitar, and Steve Beresford on piano.
