Alan O'Rourke

Next up was the Irish Singer-Songwriter Alan O’Rourke. Regular readers will know that this is not my favourite genre of music, so I was not necessarily expecting anything particularly startling. I’m happy to report that once again my jaundiced preconception was totally unjustified. Alan is unclassifiable by any usual terms of categorisation, so I shall have to resort to a series of comparisons with easily recognisable landmarks of good taste to tell you what he was like! His basic voice and accent is somewhat reminiscent of that of U2’s Bono, but this has to be qualified by saying this is only the start of what he has to offer. Imagine Frank Skinner creaky comedic delivery and transfer this to a singing voice. Also think the extremes of bronchial hacks and wheezes delivered sometimes from deep throat, sometimes as a high nasal whine and apply these methodologies to a wide spectrum of moans, grunts and other gutteral utterances and you have a rough picture of what we’re dealing with here. These vocals sounds are amazing and set alongside a number of interestingly creative acoustic guitar effects they provide a highly emotive and descriptive kind of music which one doesn’t need to actually hear the songwords to get all the information one needs to know to decipher the music. It’s dramatic and picturesque and highly original to boot. The sounds at one time reminded me of David Crosby’s seminal album ‘If I Could Only Remember My Name’ with its extreme variation of volume and vocal range and its rambling noodly styling. When Jules Franks joined Alan to jam on djembe I was reminded of Plant & Page’s excursions into middle eastern music on their un-Ledded ‘No Quarter’ album. Despite having to invoke these comparisons to draw a picture of the area we were in, it needs to be said that Alan O’Rourke is a true original with a sound and style of his own. He deserves to be sought out by anyone looking for something new to brighten up or revive their musical landscape.



Abi Rhodes' Zigzag



My first cd, How to Fly is still available to buy on most outlets like iTunes and CDbaby





My next album, "Landing", i am reccording at home and away in hidden places and will be available in the Autumn or there abouts.



xAx





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