CAPTAIN A & The Commercial Monsters, the Galway band whose sound mixes the diverse influences of prog, Bill Withers, and Big Tom, will launch their debut album Dreams at the Citóg night in the Róisín Dubh tomorrow [May 20] at 9pm.
Dreams was recorded at various locations around Ireland and features contributions from Mike Stevens (Groom ), The Henry Girls, Allen Blighe (Spook of 13th Lock ), Ewa Gigon, and Comrade Hat.
Band leader Eoghan Holland explains the idea behind the album title and how the album itself was made. "I recorded around 50 pieces for Dreams. It wasn't just the album title, it was my working manifesto for the whole time I was doing it," he says. "If I imagined it, I did it. I'd write half songs, instrumentals, whatever and then ask people to play on them, then somebody else, and just keep going and going - I didn't want to be control of it, like a sort of big production thing where you get someone with great chops and say 'play this'. In Dreams people just improvised, did what they wanted. As time rolled on, songs started appearing here and there. I had so much stuff recorded that I used to sneak on tracks at house parties and see how people reacted. That's how the final tracks for the record were picked."
Eoghan says the lyrical theme of the albums is "all about love, going from dark times to bright times and revering the tiny things that get you there". Above all though he describes Dreams as "an album for speakers and headphones" that will be interpreted very differently when it is played live.
"I think to do it live I'd need something like a 27 piece band of mutli-instrumentalists but what is the point?" he asks. "I'd just be putting the lion back in the cage. What we do live is something else, it's about the room, the people on stage and the people around us, it has its own life and sound, and I don't see a reason one and the other should try and be the same."
Admission is free. The album will be available at a special launch price at the gig. Also on the bill are Yawning Chasm and Keith McNamara. See www.captainaandthecommercialmonsters.net
