NOT ASLEEP ON THE JOB

Duo have their cake and eat it on album

- By Cathal Ryan

RADICAL alt-pop duo Beauty Sleep aren't just the cherry on top - they are “the whole damn cake”.

The Derry duo, composed of producers/ songwriters Cheylene Murphy and Ryan McGroarty, released their sophomore record, The Whole Damn Cake, in late October, and will be playing a string of dates in support of the album over November and December.

The 13-track, which follows their 2019 debut Be Kind, is the culmination of years of growth, self-interrogation, radical joy-seeking and musical exploration.

“It was years in the making,” Cheylene told the Star's Scene. "It's a long process. We released our first album, Be Kind, in 2019, and then, obviously, 2020, was crazy.

“We had the pandemic, and our manager at the time, Lyndon Stephens, passed away, and there was a lot of just shaky ground.

“We wrote a lot of songs that year that we just didn’t feel were particularly exciting in moving on the story of the first album.”

She added: “Radical Happiness were the first words we wrote. And we said we wanted to try and figure out how to be happy for ourselves, on our own terms.