Lisa Regan talks to Philip Fogarty about his up-coming gig in Galway.

How do you find performing in Galway?

Very intense, in a good way. There are usually a fair number of people in the audience that I know. You'd think this would make the whole thing very chilled out, but actually the gig takes on another dimension entirely. I'm usually very buzzed after a Galway gig.

How does performing in Galway differ from other performances?

I'm from the West, so the crowd are in on it with you, so to speak. I feel that the music is very much of its place, so people in the West are generally in a particularly informed position to judge what I do.

Can you tell us a bit about the show?

I wanted to make it work at ordinary, human, volume levels. In the past the gigs were a wall of noise, big soundscapes, technology - good noise mind you; we had a lot of fun with it. But I began to feel that things were getting in the way. I wanted to make it more immediate, but without losing the sense of the material. So we still use technology, but in a different way - delays, digital effects, mixing, and we work that with violins, bass, bodhr?n, percussion and so on with the vocals over that.

I do the vocals and some bodhr?n, percussion, accordion, effects and mixing. Michael Chang is on violin. Anna Lardi is also on violin with keyboards, percussion, effects and mixing. And Eddie Dee is on bass and percussion. It's an odd blend of mixing on stage as we play, but it makes for a very different feeling at the gigs. As an added bonus we get to do it without cracking our eardrums? or anyone else's.

What have you been up to until now?

After the initial burst of touring in Ireland and beyond, on the strength of 'Endangered Breed' some years back, I stopped, had a rethink and retreated into the studio for a bit. I switched a lot of things around, wrote new material and then went back on stage, but the live approach was undergoing a gradual change in the direction of the line-up described above. The recordings 'Songs for Animals', 'Short Stories' and 'Lambs' are at this point now also available directly from the website philipfogarty.com as downloads. The whole downloads area is proving to be a very positive thing. Since then there has been two tours and I've been working on new material.

What was the highlight of the last year?

The tour we've just finished! We've had great attendances, great feedback. It's been a really positive time.

What are your plans for the year ahead?

Top of my list is to stay alive; after that, anything's a bonus! I'll concentrate on writing and recording for the remainder of 2007, and there should be another burst of gigging in the spring.

Where next after Galway?

The current tour is just finished and we've just one date left, a very special gig down in the grounds of Coole Park in Gort on Thursday 8 November. After that, nothing for the next couple of months. There will be a few dates on the continent next year. We've just been invited to play in Switzerland in the summer and we'll certainly be doing Irish dates, of course.