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It\u2019s the mid 1990\u2019s. I\u2019m 12 years old and at boarding school in Kenya. I\u2019m nervously awaiting my slot in a piano recital. I play Mozart\u2019s Sonata Facile in C. I nail it and I feel for the first time the buzz of an audience connecting with my sounds. It is a defining moment.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 2013. I\u2019m standing on a stage in the sweltering heat of Dar Es Salaam, before a crowd of thousands of rowdy and impatient, and mostly male, youngsters. \u2018Bongo Fleva\u2019 (Swahili pop) stars have been gyrating sexily to backing tracks most of the day. Many have been booed off stage. My guitar stops working. In a panic, I sing Sikupendi<\/a><\/span> acapella. By the end of the song. I\u2019ve won round about sixty percent of the crowd. The other forty percent want to throw things at me just as they\u2019ve done to everyone else. It is beyond bizarre. It is a defining moment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 2009. I\u2019m playing in Eamon Dorans, Dublin with my band, Caracoles. It\u2019s a night full of rather sombre \u2018alternative rock\u2019 and experimental sounds. They are wonderful, if sad. But the audience gets up spontaneously and starts dancing and grooving to one of our new, more upbeat songs, \u2018Fading Pain<\/a>\u2019<\/span>. I am struck by the range of emotions and responses music can provoke, even in a crowd that is \u2018into\u2019 darker music. It is a defining moment.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sat in a flat in Valencia in 2013 glued to the news that the Islamist group Al Shabaab has attacked a shopping centre in Nairobi. My partner\u2019s pregnant friend has been shot. Her lost child\u2019s is named Shivani. A song is born out from the vicarious anguish of knowing that she will not be born. It gushes out, like a lament. I name it \u2018Shivani<\/a><\/span>\u2019 after her. I sing it for hours and hours, amid tears. It is a defining moment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 2004. My first ever band, \u2018To Show This Idea\u2019 plays our final show in the U.K. before I move back to Tanzania, and eventually back to Ireland, after four years in Leeds. The venue is our own basement. My brother, who would be the last person to compliment me on my music, approaches after the show full of enthusiasm, and says: \u2018My god Kieran that was fantastic, I\u2019m so surprised.\u2019 It is a defining moment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 2014. I\u2019m touring with a band called Solana through Europe. We stop in Calais at the makeshift migrant camp where people from everywhere have gathered. Many are traumatized, some from war torn countries, all displaced. That night we play an unplugged gig for them all. After playing my song \u2018Equinox<\/a>\u2019<\/span>, I break into Bob Marley\u2019s \u2018Buffalo Soldier,\u2019 and everyone starts to jam along. The audience lights up. The refrain \u2018Woy yoy yoy!\u2019 sees everyone start singing together. Smiles all around. This was a defining moment.<\/p>\n These moments sit amid countless others that any musician will have had. Being a musician means having the job of looking after this medium; holding the responsibility to use it wisely. Creating music is working within the same medium, world, or space. Every musician will have their own particular approach to this.<\/p>\n In my case, I\u2019m yet to grasp fully how I create songs and music, because it seems to happen differently every time. I think that my lyrics mostly come from observation and enquiry, and the music behind (or in front of) them mostly comes from reaction or response. The songs on the \u2018Super Feo Express\u2019 album tell the story of over twelve years of composing, performing, and collaborating in bands and musical projects on four continents. Musically, the songs are responses to the musical contexts I found myself in.<\/p>\n Recording \u2018Super Feo Express\u2019 has been arduous and has taken a long time partly due to huge personal challenges along the way that delayed the process. It includes the work of around fifteen wonderful musicians, mostly based in Dublin but hailing from all around the world. It has taken three years, but it is here, and it is done. And I am honoured to share it with the world.<\/p>\n I am also thrilled that I\u2019ll be presenting the album\u2019s physical manifestations (CD and Vinyl) with a full band live gig at Lost Lane on September 24th<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. I hope reading about my background has sparked curiosity and I will see you there. You will also find the album on Spotify<\/a><\/span>, Bandcamp<\/a><\/span>, Soundcloud<\/a><\/span>, among other digital sites.<\/p>\n Jack Kerouac once said: \u2018The only truth is music.\u2019 I believe that I have been able to express myself truthfully in the \u2018Super Feo Express\u2019 album, and it is my hope that listeners will be able to appreciate that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Music is like a home. A country. A tribe. A religion or faith. You can\u2019t see it, yet it is real, and has tangible effects. It brings people together. Or it pushes them apart. It creates groups and sub-groups through inclusion or othering. It provokes love and friendship and connection. It reaches into the core […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":5070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[204],"class_list":["post-5069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-uncategorized","tag-2019july"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/photo-3-1.jpg\")
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