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Dublin band SPRINTS is finding success in a world that's on fire

WSHU | By Raina Douris,
Kimberly Junod
Published September 2, 2026 at 2:09 PM EDT
WXPN

Welcome to the very first installment of our brand-new Sense of Place: Dublin series! For Sense of Place, you get to join us on a trip to dig into music scenes around the world. When it comes to hotbeds of creativity, it doesn't get much hotter than the capital of the Republic of Ireland.

The birthplace of Oscar Wilde, the home of James Joyce, Thin Lizzy and Sinéad O'Connor, the Fair City has a long history of storytelling. Over the next couple of weeks, you'll hear from a new generation of Dublin artists, starting with our guests today, the band SPRINTS.

SPRINTS formed in 2019, building buzz with a string of singles and EPs, as well as their electrifying live shows, before releasing their critically acclaimed debut album, Letter to Self, in 2024. Last year, they followed it up with their second album, All That Is Over.

For this session, recorded in front of a live World Cafe audience at Windmill Lane Recording Studios, in Dublin, you'll hear a conversation with lead singer and guitarist Karla Chubb and guitarist Zac Stephenson. The band also performs a stripped-down set that's a little different from its usual heavier, four-piece sound.

Thank you to our on-site video production team: Néstor Romero Clemente, Darren McKenna, Luke Brabazon and LightJar.

Set List

  • "Coming Alive"
  • "Jackson"
  • "Literary Mind"
  • "Up and Comer"
  • "Desire"

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod.  Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.
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Music World Cafe
Raina Douris
Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She is also involved with Canada's highest music honors: Since 2017, she has hosted the Polaris Music Prize Gala, for which she is also a jury member, and she has also been a jury member for the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.
See stories by Raina Douris
Kimberly Junod
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).
See stories by Kimberly Junod