Peter Doran interview

Sleepless Street is a place that’s deep underground. A subterranean lane populated with Fellini-esque all-night partiers, insomniac artists looking for the truth, and mathematicians feverishly working out their infinite equations. It’s a constant carnival of fireworks, revelry, and telephones that ring ceaselessly. But, naturally, this surreal street doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s an imagined place, one that lives in the clouded mind of Allison, the confused young girl who inspired the title track to Dublin singer-songwriter Peter Doran’s superbly crafted second album. Which must mean, then, Allison doesn’t really exist, either—or does she? “Sort of,” says Peter, 26. “She’s someone I half knew and half invented. ‘Sleepless Street’ is about a girl who discovers this whole hidden bohemian world and ends up falling in with a bad crowd, doing drugs, all of that. But, in the song at least, she gets out okay in the end.” The track carries Peter’s tender voice over a flowing canvas of shimmering guitars and soft drums, and floats by like a rambling dream, an epic poem full of vivid vignettes