Side 4 Collective | Dave Hingerty’s Drum-Driven Playground for Collaborator

Music Review | 12th Sept, 2025 Side 4 Collective

Musical project, Side 4 Collective, is the genre-bending brainchild of Irish drummer and producer Dave Hingerty. Hingerty starts every track the same way, with a set of raw, pre-written grooves. I create drumbeats and record them, he explains. That’s how these Side 4 songs start. From there, he invites an eclectic crew of Irish and international artists to dive in, pick a beat (or three), and write music around it.

The latest fruit of this creative experiment is You And Me (Against The World), a heartfelt single ahead of Side 4 Collective’s new album dropping this October. The track brings together Colm Quearney (Lir, Dragonfly) and Carol Keogh (The Plague Monkeys, The Tycho Brahe, plus her solo work Wolf and the upcoming Lycanthropy), with production wizardry from Anthony Gibney.

This song was a joy to create. Combining Colm Quearney's ( Lir, Dragonfly etc) and Carol Keogh's ( The Plague Monkeys, The Tycho Brahe and solo project The Wicc's debut album Wolf in 2022 and is releasing follow up Lycanthropy this autumn) songwriting gifts and unique voices, we felt we were onto a really good thing from the off! Add to this Anthony Gibney's sound diligence and expertise and we had yet another unique Side 4 single release to be proud of. I think it's our duty to create new and interesting music all of the time and I hope you feel we managed to do this.

The inspiration for the writing of this song was the letter Vicky Cornell had written to Variety Magazine in part to eulogise her beloved, departed Chris, It became very important for us to approach this story with the sensitivity and tenderness, but also the unforgiving brutality and loss of a lost life. This is the story of a loved one drowning under the weight of mental health and addiction, of being so close and so within reach, but just beyond rescue. The song is seeking a way to deal with the complicated feelings of losing someone to suicide. It acknowledges the confusion that the ones who are left behind feel, while trying to understand and respect their loved one's choices - Hingerty

With grooves as its foundation and emotion at its core, Side 4 Collective continues to be one of Ireland’s most fascinating collaborative music projects.

Side 4 Collective - You And Me

The single, You And Me, is available through all streaming platforms.

Photo Credit: Side 4 Collective