Secure shopping

Studio equipment

Our full range of studio equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.

Visit Juno Studio

Secure shopping

DJ equipment

Our full range of DJ equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.  Visit Juno DJ

Secure shopping

Vinyl & CDs

The world's largest dance music store featuring the most comprehensive selection of new and back catalogue dance music Vinyl and CDs online.  Visit Juno Records

Microdisney and Telefis singer Cathal Coughlan dies aged 61

Family announced iconic singer’s death “after a long illness” today

Cathal Coughlan, the lead singer with legendary 80s band Microdisney and several other pioneering projects, has died aged 61.

His family announced today that the Cork-born artist had ‘slipped away peacefully in hospital after a long illness’ on May 18.

Coughlan first came to prominence as the singer and songwriter of Microdisney, who formed in 1980 in Cork and recorded five albums for Rough Trade Records and Virgin.

Microdisney reformed for two shows in 2018, one in Dublin’s National Concert Hall and a second at London’s Barbican, and were presented with a IMRO | NCH Trailblazer Award for their 1985 album The Clock Comes Down The Stairs.

As well as the latest in a series of solo albums, Song Of Co Aklan, out just over a year ago, Coughlan released an acclaimed collaborative album with Jacknife Lee under the name Telefis earlier this year.

“I do have a tendency to overdo it,” he said of the Telefis project in an an interview earlier this year, “We do have to edit me fairly heavily for several reasons.  I tend to put too many twists in the melody, and in my own stuff there’s too many chords.  This is definitely well away from that and welcome for it.  Garret (Jacknife Lee) has taught me economy for the first time in a long time.”

A second Telefis album, with guest appearances from Jah Wobble and members of Echo and the Bunnymen and A Certain Ratio and Jah Wobble, was said to be awaiting release on Coughlan’s current home Dimple Discs.

Cathal leaves behind his wife, Julie. A memorial ceremony will be held amongst close friends and family in the near future.

Among the many tributes to Coughlan, longtime friend and regular collaborator Daniel Figgis told Juno Daily: “Cathal was, at the very least, Ireland’s greatest songwriter. This is arguably best exemplified by 2002’s wondrous The Sky’s Awful Blue and its magisterial knockout blow White’s Academy, although there was no discernible diminution in his powers of late. He poetically and forensically interrogated the unacknowledged faultlines of a self satisfied culture quite as riven by classism as the next. It would be easy, in this moment, to stoop to pieties in celebrating Cathal Coughlan but they have no place here.

“A good hearted ‘egg-er on-er’ may not be how many think of Thee Stentorian but I’ll miss his vital life-enhancing pep talks. I loved and admired him and was honoured to count him as a friend and supportive confidante. I will miss his sage kindness -there’s more than the devil in the details.”

Rolo McGinty of 80s and early 90s indie cotemporaries The Woodentops also recalled fondly the dates Microdisney and he had played together, including a televised date at London’s Dominion Theatre headlined by David Bowie. “A big shame to see him go,” he added.

Check our recent articles on Telefis and Cathal Coughlan here:

ALBUM OF THE WEEK – Telefis- A hAon (Dimple Discs)

Exclusive: Telefis share video for new Thomas Leer remix of ‘Archbishop Beardmouth…’

Premiere – Cathal Coughlan and Jacknife Lee’s Telefis project share video for ‘Mister Imperator’

Cathal Coughlan’s favourite records of 2020