Junior Brother recorded one of his early low-fi records in his kitchen in Kerry. A couple of years and many gigs later, he talks to Martin Cook about his evolution as an experimental folk singer.
Ronan Kealy, known to fans as Junior Brother, took his stage name from a play by Thomas Middleton called The Revenger’s Tragedy. It suited the time period his songs are drawn from, he says. “But it’s also quite mad and experimental.”
The folk singer brings together acoustic guitar and a rhythmic foot tambourine. He sings in his Kerry accent, thanks to the influence of his uncle, who said he should have a listen to Damien Dempsey, who sings in his own Dublin voice, and made Kealy realise that “I can just sing in my own accent and it’s grand.”
Kealy was in Dublin recently to perform some of his songs at Marrowbone Books in The Coombe, including the popular “Hungover at Mass” and “No Snitch”. Before the gig, he talked to Martin Cook about all this and more. Have a listen.
“It’s coming during this wave when people are bringing trad music into modern spaces. But it came out of pure experimentation,” says musician Ian Nyquist.
And Danny Groenland puts “his activist spirit front and centre”.
The eponymous debut album from the band Throwing Shapes is due for release on 7 September.
When Murky Anyango started to record what would eventually become her debut album, she wanted it to be a solo endeavour in every respect.
