BLEEDING HEART PIGEONS
Harmonic presents
BLEEDING HEART PIGEONS
[SINGLE LAUNCH]
plus guests
The Irish trio of Micháel Keating, Cathal Histon and Brendan McInerney under the guise of Bleeding Heart Pigeons are set to release their debut, self-titled EP on 16th December through Virgin. The band have made the EP’s opening track ‘Visiting Myself In Hospital’ available to stream from Soundcloud now. https://soundcloud.com/two-
Bleeding Heart Pigeons was incubated entirely away from other artists, the band having met in a music school in their local village. The three musicians – all still in their teens – are based outside Limerick, Ireland, and have had virtually no contact with the world of music. “We’ve barely met another band or artist,” Keating says. “We have a bizarre background.” The journey to Limerick takes some 45 minutes. To encounter artists of the sort they now listen to, the trio must make the four hour trip to Dublin. “We haven’t seen much live music,” Keating says.
Given their seclusion, it is perhaps unsurprising that Bleeding Heart Pigeons have forged an entirely singular sound. They are quietly operatic, theatrical in the Beckettian sense, making music that warps and dismembers the fundamental tropes of alternative rock. The trio veer between Greenwood-esque guitar attack and eerie piano lullaby, between trebly finger picking and droning electronics. They seem to hold together a vast palette of sounds, all of which they have accreted not through watching other bands but through an obsessive perusal of the internet; through a new form of magpie-esque record collecting.
Despite the band’s rural roots, the Bleeding Heart Pigeons EP sets its sights not on Ireland but on Colorado, USA. On 20 April 1999, two students armed themselves with semi-automatic weapons, entered Columbine High School, and conducted one of the worst massacres America has ever suffered. Bleeding Heart Pigeons’ EP is a response to the shootings; an attempt to interrogate the psychology of Eric Harris, one of the two killers.
This liberal approach to composition, and the EP’s refusal to provide clear answers on Columbine, are both reflected in Keating’s own perceptions of music.
“John Cage has this quote,” he says, “where he talks about music. He says it’s not a way to create order out of chaos, or to suggest that the world should be better. It’s just a way of opening yourself up to living your life properly – opening yourself up to the world around you. It’s about your relationship with the world around you.”
TICKETS
€7 on the door!
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required.
AFTER THE GIG
Whelan’s Indie Club /// ZEBRA /// [Live Bands and guest DJs] w/ Late Bar from 10:30pm (Free entry before 10:30pm).