Halves

Halves is an instrumental post-rock group from Dublin, Ireland, active from 2006 to 2016. The line-up includes Elis Czerniak, with the bio also naming Brian Cash and the Czerniak brothers Tim and Elis among the members, alongside additional live players. The group forms around shared listening choices, with Dave, Brian and Tim first sitting down together and listing the bands and composers they admire.

Early releases

The band begins with two EPs: a self-titled release and Haunt Me When I’m Drowsy, a seven-track EP issued in 2008. In March 2009 they release the single “Blood Branches” on a split 7-inch with Dublin band Subplots.

Debut album

Halves release their debut album, It Goes, It Goes (Forever & Ever), in 2010. The record later appears in the UK and mainland Europe in 2011. It is recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal, a studio in a former alarm factory beside a freight railroad, over two weeks in August 2009. The album is made using the studio’s collection of antique instruments, amplifiers, organs and effects, many dating from the 1930s. Eleven songs are recorded live in one large room on 2″ reel-to-reel tape, with production by Efrim Menuck, Howard Bilerman and Radwan Moumneh.

Guest performers and recognition

Guest contributors on It Goes, It Goes (Forever & Ever) include Amy Millan, Katie Kim, Phil Boughton, harpist Elaine Kelly-Canning, Irish chamber brass and string players, and twenty-seven members of the Kilkenny Ladies’ Choir. The album is shortlisted for the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year 2010.

Live activity

Halves perform at Oxegen, Electric Picnic, Hard Working Class Heroes, the IMRO Showcase Tour and the London Calling showcase in London. Their first performance outside Ireland is at Eurosonic in the Netherlands in 2008, and they later play Canadian Music Week in Toronto and SXSW in Texas. Other festival appearances include Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2010 and The Great Escape in Brighton in 2011. They also make their debut television appearance in 2009 on RTÉ’s Other Voices, where they top the viewers’ choice poll.

Live setup and visuals

The group is known for changing instruments during performance, using electric guitars, dulcimer, drum kit, piano, vocoder, synthesiser, laptop, accordion, clarinet, flugelhorn, trombone and various effects. Their shows also feature pre-programmed and live visuals by Slipdraft, whose members are Sam Boles, Daniel Staines and Cormac Murray. Ciaran Mangan is the band’s live sound engineer and also records their live album.

Later release

In April 2012, Halves release the live album Live At The Unitarian Church for Record Store Day. The band does not release any new music after 2013.