CMAT has said that Ireland's recent musical success comes from a "generation of traumatised people".
The Irish singer made these comments ahead of the Mercury Prize award ceremony, which saw her nominated alongside fellow Irish act, Fontaines D.C for her new album, Euro-Country. At the event in Newcastle, CMAT said that their success came as a result of "a lot of bad fruits coming to harvest", and added she is "very excited" about the awards.
She was nominated alongside Fontaines D.C, Sam Fender, Pulp. FKA Twigs, Wolf Alice, Pa Salieu, PinkPatheress, Emma-Jean Thackray, Joe Webb, Jacob Alon, and Martin Carthy.
"I think that this is a bit of a generation of traumatised people that are getting to make music now", CMAT told the PA news agency.
She continued: "I wish I could pinpoint it to anything else, but it’s just the fact that everything is coming up through the rafters so quickly, and there’s a lot of artists from a very small, not very densely populated country, making a lot of music that feels quite important, as opposed to trivial".
"I think everybody is a bit earnest and has had their head screwed on a little bit because we all went through something 20-odd years ago my age group (the 2008 Irish economic downturn referenced on her album), and we’re now really dealing with the fall-out and the repercussions of it", she added. "So I think on a psychological level, everybody just kind of has that thing in common".
