Sacred Animals’ native Wexford to Dublin along the coast is a straight road, but veer a few miles off it and you find yourself up in the mountains. From the Sally Gap you can look out across Lough Tay hundreds of metres below and see the wind carving its way through the hills. “The energy is incredible – so primal. You realise life is pretty fleeting. But that’s kind of precious in a weird way.” 　　And the music’s precious too. It draws on the rich tapestry of styles and sounds that make this such a compelling time to make music but also draws from those hidden places – Darragh’s is not a completely clear vision of what the music is and might become. “It’s about everything that makes artists we love, people like Thom Yorke, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Ed Droste (Grizzly Bear) create and then go back and explore. I’ve written songs for years and have always loved doing it. But when the songs start coming out like this, from somewhere I couldn’t always reach, that’s something really exciting.” 　　Sacred Animals is about just that. Letting the music speak and breath, respecting its nature. 　　It’s an unusual light across the Wicklow mountains in the May dusk, purple and orange, and it’s got Darragh thinking. “I’m not so sure we have things figured out at all. That’s what happens when you stop and stare out across a place like this.” Sacred Animals look ahead and the road winds off through the hills and into the distance.