Biography | ||
The musical world inhabited by The Plague Monkeys is the same evocative place that one might find, say a Mazzy Star or Mary Margaret O'Hara. try to imagine The Velvet Underground jamming with the Cocteau Twins and you begin to get an impression of this group. Haunting, beautiful vocals, enjoined with shimmering soundscapes and evocative lyrics to create music that inexorably draws the listener in. The Plague Monkeys are special: they have been described on more than one occasion as "a breath of fresh air": the UK media is now beginning to take note as are industry people in the US. The "People and Machinery" EP featured the track which became the bands namesake. This EP was featured on the Mike Moloney Show on 2FM during January 1996. In March 1996, the band made a video for the song The Plague Monkeys, with independent film director Brian O'Malley. This video was frequently played on Irish alternative music programme No Disco and featured in the best of the season as chosen by the shows programmers. The same month, The Plague Monkeys won an award for "Best Music Video" in Altered Visions, a national festival for independent video. It went on to feature on 2TV (pop video show) where it entered the video chart at No.1. Also in March, the band recorded a session for Dave Fanning's programme on 2FM, produced by Ian Wilson, which has been aired three times due to popular demand. In addition, The Plague Monkeys material has been played on other national radio stations, and on college radio in Philadelphia, where it was picked up by loyal fans. The Plague Monkeys have concentrated on taking their mounting repertoire to the stage. They have played nationwide venues such as The Da Club, Connolly's of Leap, Behan's Blue Room and most recently, Andrews Lane Theatre, to great response. They are also presently considering offers from both recording and publishing companies. In April 1997, the band released the "Navigator EP" which contained four tracks, including Star Country, which they made another successful video for with director Brian O'Malley. In May 1997, Carol and Donal did an interview on No Disco. They have plans to build their own studio. In the summer of 1998, the band released their debut album "Surface Tension" followed by "Mouth To Mouth" in November. In September 1999, the band released their second album "The Sunburn Index".
Press Release: 'The Sunburn Index'Released Friday October 8th on Crosstown Music. THE SECOND COMING Vicar Street - Saturday October 9th.
Yet these Monkeys deal in extremes. Not that they rely on bombast - quite the contrary. But from their debut 1995 cassette-only EP People And Machinery right up to the new album The Sunburn Index (released next month on Crosstown Music) this collective have always been extreme in their self-possession and singularity of vision. In fact, vision is a key word; The Plague Monkeys have always painted soundscapes, utilising the principal elements of Carol Keogh’s heartstopping voice, Thomas Haugh and Barry Roden’s deft rhythms, and Donal O’ Mahony’s impressionistic washes of guitar, occasionally accompanied and enhanced by video clips courtesy of Brian O’ Malley (who lensed ‘Star Country’ off the Navigator EP and ‘White Feather’ from the debut album Surface Tension). No surprise then, that the band were approached by I Went Down director an award winning playwright Conor McPherson to score his film Saltwater (due to be shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival in mid-September). Some of the results of that soundtrack work, plus demo versions of new material, can be downloaded from the group’s website www.plaguemonkeys.com. And so, to that second album, which follows hot on the heels of the recent Mouth To Mouth EP. The Sunburn Index is a fiercely turbulent work which remains faithful to but expands on the promise of their debut. Here, the quartet continue to eschew the use of off-the rack samples and designer beats in favour of generating their own loops, stretching their own original canvases. The results vary from the exotic (the kaleidoscopic chimes of ‘Polar Magnets Pt II’) to the symphonic (‘Sea Change’) to the downright industrial (‘Over’). Some acts pursue music as a career. Others, like My Bloody Valentine or the Velvets or Philip Glass, undertake the altogether more challenging task of bringing new elements to the periodic table. With 1998’s Surface Tension The Plague Monkeys placed themselves squarely in the latter camp, formulating their own ideology, methodology, and - most importantly - identity. Here was a dialect strange to rock ‘n’ roll; blurry sketches of lost map-makers, archaeologists, lighthouse-keepers . . . all manner of threshold-dwellers. The Sunburn Index continues to investigate those themes, identifying art in the sciences by way of titles like ‘Rogue Gene’ and ‘Doppler Effect’. Fitting then, that Carol Keogh - who sometimes recalls Mary Margaret O’ Hara or Tim Buckley or Liz Fraser in her apparent fascination with the point where language breaks down and pure sound coheres - is a fan of Umberto Eco. It's also fitting that the band have joined forces with the late Jeff Buckley’s manager George Stein. The Sunburn Index is a remarkably assured second album by a band who carry themselves less like spirit-drinkers than spirit-catchers. Remember Poltergeist? They’re here . . . The Plague Monkeys will mark the
release of The Sunburn Index with a show at Vicar Street on Saturday
October 9th. | ||
The Plague Monkeys are a four piece band from Dublin, Ireland. They are Carol Keogh (vocals), Donal O' Mahony (guitars, keyboards and mandolin), Barry Roden (bass) and Thomas Haugh (drums, percussion and keyboard). They formed in December 1995, and released an independent demo EP "
The Plague Monkeys are the musical incarnation of Abe Lincoln's dictum that one should tread softly, but carry a big stick. Like Paul Auster in prose, or Edward Hopper on canvas, or Wim Wenders in film, they don’t harangue, they haunt, using sound as the medium.
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