HE IS the lead singer and songwriter for The Felice Brothers;has written songs for Bat For Lashes and The Lumineers; and is a critically acclaimed solo artist, who is coming to Galway next week.
Ian Felice plays the Róisín Dubh on Friday November 9 at 8pm, and his performance will include songs from his most recent solo album, In The Kingdom Of Dreams.
From the Catskill Mountains region of southeastern New York state, Ian began writing songs and performing with his brothers Simone and James, as The Felice Brothers, after moving to NYC. They have gone on to become a much praised Americana band. As Allmusic.com said: "The Felice Brothers are the real deal...the perfect group to helm this sort of whiskey-soaked, Beat Generation nostalgia, as they inhabit their songs to the fullest extent possible".
In 2016, Ian wrote a collection of songs which were recorded the following year with the original Felice Brothers line-up of James (keys ), Simone (drums ), and Josh Rawson (fiddle ). That recording became In The Kingdom Of Dreams, which No Depression called "Felice’s solo masterpiece”, and The Morning Star declared was "dark and powerful, a...masterful work".
“When I began writing the songs," says Ian, "many were based on memories of my past but not necessarily all literal or in a logical sequence. I became interested in the pull between reality and unreality and also in how time affects memory. It became a place where I could escape from the numbing flood of data that permeates modern life and try to unravel pieces of my past, rearrange memories with dreams or lines from my imagination, and construct something that functioned outside the limits of reality."
Support is from Nick Paken. Tickets are available from www.roisindubh.net; the Ticket Desk at OMG@Zhivago, Shop Street; and The Róisín Dubh.