Polar Bolero
Polar Bolero are a Derry based songwriting duo, Pearse McLaughlin and Cahir Doherty, augmented by an impressive group of musicians to complete the Polar Bolero sound. KIOSK caught up with them late in 2025 and again in early 2026 when they were about to launch a new recording at the Duncairn Arts Centre in Belfast.
This is PART 2 of a two part interview.
In terms of the instrumentation, and the songs blending different genres together, do you think that might appeal to a range of audiences?
Pearse: It is a reference point especially at festivals. We do hear people say, “Polar Bolero, that’s the band with the saxophone and the fiddle” so clearly it makes some sort of impact.
Cahir:To us, the songs are just songs and we could do them in any number of ways. We choose to do it this way because, I suppose, we're playing with our friends and they play in the way that they play. And we really like the sound that we make as a band.
I like the genre we've landed in, or the genres we’ve landed in, and when I think about it, I really can't think of too many bands that have a similar sound to us, precisely because of the blending of the genres we work with. Maybe “The Water Boys” sound similar sometimes because they've got a bit of a folk thing and a bit of a jazz thing. There's a band called Black Country New Road that maybe we would fit well next to, but we like what we do and how we sound and we aim to build an audience around our work.
Where to now?
Cahir: We're going into the studio now, (September – October 2025) to try to bolster this new sound we've developed. We've got a couple of full band arrangements, four new songs altogether, to be recorded.
Pearse: We hope to go on some sort of tour as well, possibly in Ireland next Summer and maybe that could include going to London or Scotland.
When we last spoke in late August 2025 you had a number of things in the pipeline, a new recording and organising a tour. Where are you up to with your plans?
Cahir: Since we last spoke we have successfully completed a recording with the producer Matty Weir. This follows on from our last EP which was very much a live sounding recording
We have two follow up singles which have a more produced sound. We took more time over the recording of those tracks.
We also have two songs which we recorded in Blast Furnace with Daryl Harkin. And we have some dates lined up so we will be playing at the Courthouse in Bangor on 10th of April. (Tickets)
Pearse: Probably the most important development for us is that we won the Gerry Anderson Bursary Award at the NI Music Prize. That was an incredible honour and there was a financial reward as well. And we did think on the night that it would be a great award to win. We’re from Derry and Gerry Anderson was a Derry Legend and the family was responsible for choosing the winner.
Right now, we are in the process of trying to work out how we can use that money, whether it will help with a tour of England or whether we should record new music. It’s a good situation to be in.
Cahir: We released a couple of promotional singles “The Bride” in September last year and “Soar” in October last year. And we have just released “Headline Culture”.
Despite being a little disorganised at times we have managed to complete most of the activities we had planned and we are looking forward to the response to our recordings and the live shows as well.