Saturday 07th September 2024
Location: Rollercoaster Records, Kieran Street, Kilkenny
With no sign of letting up, the ever-prolific and masterful John Blek brings us his ninth studio album, Cheer Up. This album is a powerful reflection on the singer/songwriter’s life, lyrically demonstrating his personal growth while sonically showing his musical evolution. To some, this may seem like a stylistic departure, but to others, it’s the natural next step.

Blek says, “This is a very important record for me. It’s the first of mine that is entirely autobiographical from start to finish. Also, in the past, I have tried to be quite restrained when it came to the production of my songs, but this time around I wanted to adopt a more is more approach. Allowing each song to dictate its own natural path and taking it as far as I could with the resources available to me.”

Co-produced with regular collaborator Brian Casey and recorded at Wavefield Recordings,the album is a rich tapestry of musical talent, featuring performances from Dutch three piece harmony group Woolf and the Dresden based Broken Strings.

“Part of the joy of my life is getting to meet other artists. I played some shows with Woolf in the Netherlands, and we immediately clicked. The first time I heard them sing together, I knew I wanted to work with them and to hear their voices add a new depth to my songs. It was the same with Moritz Brümmer and Filip Sommer (The Broken Strings), whom I met on an artist-in-residence programme in Dresden in 2022.”

Blek has a love of music in the real sense; he creates to create. Although only 34, he has a catalogue of music that would represent a life’s work for ma
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