Music from the Heart

Ian Ashford is a singer/songwriter from Dublin, Ireland whose main influences growing up were his father's band "Stepaside" and any band his father was in through his career. Locally in Dublin the influences included The Frames, The Hothouse Flowers, The Mary Janes, a funk band called PAMF, Kíla and a hip hop group called Scary Eire. According to Ashford, "growing up in Dublin in the late 80's and early 90's was really interesting culturally and musically as the city really expanded and there was a lot of underground scene going on.We had the local scene of bands, then Manchester had a huge influence and also the acid house and rave scene arriving during this 10 year period. I loved The Stone Roses, The Smiths, The The, The Cure, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Beastie Boys, Roy Aryers."

Ashford spent a lot of time in music and photography, releasing his album Symbols in September 2019, collaborating with Irish, French and Bulgarian musicians along the way. After the album was released Ashford continued writing with a view to completing another album in 2020. He worked with Bastien Choukroun who arranged and co-produced the new material and also Simon McCourt who also worked on guitar arrangements. They worked through the pandemic and completed the album just in December 2020. The full album will come out mid summer 2021. Ally is the first single from the album.  Here is what Ian said about the song "This song started out as a song to myself. I was thinking if you could love yourself a little more you could love those you cared about most a little more too. So it started out that way, where everything starts, on your own doorstep, when you look in the silent mirror.This musical project came to fruition through multicultural collaboration. That's why it was so enjoyable and rich in contributions. Watching the hate crimes over the last year and particularly recently against Asians has really disturbed us all during this time. Some of our friends on this project are Asian Americans and Asian French. We've decided as a group of artists to say again "NO" to racism, inequality, hate crimes, bullying and spreading malicious untruths be it in a work setting, in a school, social situations or perpetuated against a  race or community of people with an objective to harm, oppress or defame. 

"Stop The Hate" - Call people out on their negativity, ask them to back up what they say with truth and fact. If we start with respect we can never go too far wrong."

The atmospheric start of the song emphasizes the message of the song, moving from the outside and from your surroundings inward, looking deeper into yourself, trying to tidy up your soul a bit. As the saying goes you cannot love others if you do not love yourself. Ashford's confident vocal leaves no doubt that he's made up his mind. And you're never gonna be alone, there's always gonna be an "ally" by your side to help cope with the world. Be it taken literally as having another human in your corner when needed or metaphorically that the ally that is never gonna leave you is yourself.

"I will run beside you

A comrade in the blue

I am your Ally"

Artwork: ELY THiNX