Cathal Coughlan - The Sky's Awful Blue (2002)

Cathal Coughlan is one of Ireland's great alternative heroes. Emerging from Cork at the start of the 80s, Mr Coughlan has been like an anti-Bono, producing challenging and interesting music, first with Microdisney and then with the Fatima Mansions, and rarely getting any credit for it.

Despite a few minor brushes with celebrity, such as massacring Bryan Adams' awful 'Everything I do' on the b-side of the Manic Street Preachers' hit version of 'Suicide is Painless', Cathal's perpetual inability, or unwillingness, to provide commercially successful music has led to major disputes with record companies and the successive disintegration of both bands. These days, he's doing things on his own.