plus guestAQUILO_ Main Venue _
Live at Whelans, Sunday 13th March – Tickets on sale now – €14.90 inclusive of booking fee charges
There is a sign pinned to the wall of Oh Wonder’s recording studio in south London, a pact of sorts, signed by the band’s two members, Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West.
“We wrote it to say that we’re dependent on one another,” explains Vander Gucht. “That there are things we want to achieve, and we can help each other get there.”
She reads out the sign, a four-‐line list of the pair’s musical ambitions: “‘We have a publishing deal off the back of writing incredible songs’; ‘We are in-‐demand songwriters, respected for our art’; ‘We feel that anything is possible and live the yes life’; ‘Music earns us an amazing living and we travel the world thanks to it.’”
That Oh Wonder have achieved all of these ambitions in the space of just two and a half years is testament to their talent and their perseverance, but even they seem a little startled by how much more they have attained: the 20 million plays on Soundcloud, the recording contract with Universal, and now their debut album, a collection of 15 impeccably-‐crafted songs that explore London and loneliness, love and the need for human relationships.
Vander Gucht was a classically-‐trained solo performer and West a singer-‐turned-‐ producer whose lives and careers overlapped for several years — a run of near-‐ encounters and half-‐conversations at gigs and venues, and vague introductions through musical acquaintances and mutual friends.
It was only when they finally sat down in West’s former studio in north London with a view to producing an EP of Vander Gucht’s solo material that they realized their great musical bond. “We found all our favourite bands were the same bands, all our favourite songs were the same songs,” says West. “It was a day of saying ‘Oh you should listen to this’. And then the other one saying ‘I know that song. That’s one of my favourite songs.’” “It was,” adds Vander Gucht, “really, really odd. I’ve never had that. I’ve never felt that closely aligned with someone, musically speaking, and more widely in terms of how we view the world.”
It was West’s suggestion that they begin writing together — purely for fun at first, as an exercise in songwriting and collaboration while they pursued their other musical projects. The first song they wrote they called Body Gold and was, Vander Gucht says “the marker for what the sound of Oh Wonder was: electronic and really R’n’B, which was totally surprising, and totally different to our solo work, but we were really proud of it.”
Brand new track: Without You
TICKETS – SOLD OUT
€14.90 available online from WAV Tickets or Lo-Call 1890 200 078 (1-8pm M-F, 4-8pm Sat)– 50c per ticket service charge applies on phone, internet or creditcard bookings. Final ticket price may be higher from other outlets.
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required
AFTER THE GIG
Whelan’s Indie DJ in the bar and Sonntags [Disco/House/Funk] upstairs from 11pm til late (Free Entry).
MCD.ie presents
