Love Island is out now!!

Greetings All,

It's with immense pleasure I can announce my new album 'Love Island' is released today. It was recorded what seems like an eternity ago in the midst of Lockdown 2.0 at Rockfield Studios in the Welsh countryside. In the interim the pandemic dragged on way longer than anyone would have predicted and personal circumstances turned my whole world upside down so frankly it feels like something of a miracle it's finally seeing the light of day!

'Love Island' is my attempt at making sense of a life lived more and more online. Taking the nations pulse by sitting indoors and scrolling through the comments section on the Daily Mail, trying to find the kernels of truth amongst the word salad. I figured behind every 'bloody forriners' comment there was presumably a human being attached to a keyboard? However the more I voyeuristically scrolled past strangers arguing on twitter the more I began to realise that this make believe world on the internet was in fact very real for many people and perhaps we were all inhabiting different realities, unwilling or unable to ever intersect? This sort of became the loose thesis for 'Love Island'

I was lucky enough to work with some absolutely cracking musicians and crew on this record to whom I'm very much indebted for facilitating some of my more indulgent moments. If you find yourself with 45 minutes of free time this weekend please treat yourselves to a headphones moment and stick it on. If you like it, tell a friend. If you really like it buy a record or a cd. If you hate it? feel free to troll me online. Either way I'm very proud of this body of work and I hope enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing and recording it!

Look after yourselves and others,

Louis

New Single & Video 'God Is Dead'

Greetings all,

It's with immense pleasure that I'm writing to tell you about my new single 'God Is Dead' which is released today. It's the first single to be released from my forthcoming album 'Love Island' and has an accompanying video expertly shot by the immensely talented Jez Leather.

I started writing the song around 2018 after reading about the mother and baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway and feeling a deep sense of anger towards the Catholic Church. I didn’t really feel I had anything new to add to that discourse though and it lay around half-written until during the pandemic when I read an article quoting scientific research that belief in a higher power is an evolutionary asset that aides human survival and part of our brain had evolved accordingly. It made me think how technology and surveillance capitalism in particular have ostensibly filled the void left by religion’s decline in the west and nobody has really batted an eyelid

Myself and Jez wanted to make a sort of sci-fi Sisyphus video and batted about several ideas of which many were not achievable. In the end the two of us went to North West Wales with pretty much zero budget and some props I’d bought off eBay. I figured the physical difficulty of dragging the munitions box around would mitigate my need for acting and Jez really managed to capture some beautiful shots. Remarkably there was hardly anyone around, so we managed to shoot the whole thing without permits in a relatively cowboy manner and tell the story we wanted to

I'm really excited to share more from this body of work, it feels like an eternity since I recorded it but such is life in the post-pandemic world! As always if you enjoy please share, argue in the comments add to your playlists and feed the algorithm (it's always hungry!)

Look after yourselves and others,

Louis

New Album 'Love Island' & London Show

Greetings Folks,

It's with immense pleasure that I can announce my forthcoming album 'Love Island' is now available to pre-order on LP/CD & Hi-Res Digital Download. The album will be available to stream on October 28th and I'll do my best to get all pre-orders shipped out in advance of that date

It was recorded in the midst of one of the lockdowns at Rockfield Studios (after a pile of paperwork and tests!) in rural Wales and mixed at Abbey Road and is my attempt to sing about the insanity of the internet and our brave new technological world, the characters that populate it and the way it makes us feel

PRE-ORDER NOW

To celebrate the release of 'Love Island' myself and the band will be playing a special show at The Camden Club in North London on November 16th. As it stands about a third of the tickets have gone already so if you plan on coming act fast!

Buy Tickets

Keep your eyes peeled for more videos, live stuff and all manner of cheap marketing ploys adding to the noise of the internet over the coming months. I'm really proud of this record and look forward to you hearing it soon!

Look after yourselves,

Louis

BLACK LIMOUSINE

On Thursday August 19th. my Dad, Louis Snr. died suddenly after a short illness. I was rehearsing in Crouch End that evening with Ned who plays keys with me for an upcoming show we had booked in Bath. My brother David phoned me shortly before the rehearsal to tell me my Dad had been taken to hospital, but he was being well looked after. I didn’t think much of it but nevertheless I declined the invite for post rehearsal pints at the Betsey Trotwood and took the train home from Harringay to Essex Rd. David phoned me shortly thereafter and told me Dad had died half an hour earlier.

At Stansted Airport there were only 13 departures on the big screen for the entire day and most of the retail outlets were still closed due to COVID. I made some difficult phone calls and waited for the gate number to be announced. My sister Síle picked me up at Dublin Airport, neither of us had slept much but it was a huge relief to see her.

The funeral would be on Tuesday and my Mother had put me in charge of the music. The house was a hive of activity, well-wishers and baked goods all weekend. It felt like I was having a slow-motion panic attack as in between dozens of cups of coffee I tried to grab some moments alone to arrange the songs my mother had chosen for the funeral and cremation.

After a mass celebrated by my Dad’s lifelong friend Father Ciary Quirke in the same church he was Baptised and Married in I sat beside my Mother in the limousine that followed the hearse to Mt. Jerome crematorium. After several days of rain, the August heat was stifling and my throat was dry. As the curtains closed on the wicker coffin containing my Father’s remains I sang “I’ll Fly Away”. I played a cheap Argos guitar I’d hastily bought on a previous trip to Dublin in March 2020, cut short by the Pandemic and imminent lockdowns; it was the last time I saw my Dad in good health.

Two days later I flew to Spain to celebrate the thrice-postponed wedding of my oldest friend to the love of his life. I was hesitant to go but life had to continue. As the two newlyweds left the cathedral having started a new life together, I once again sang “I’ll Fly Away”

When I returned to London everything was familiar but entirely changed by what had happened. The previous weeks were a blur. There’s a whole canon of music and songs whose universalism gives voice to the indescribable grief the loss of a loved one brings about but what did these songs I’d sung say about my Dad?

Certainly, death and grief are not unique, nor is love. Is the universal self-contained or is it cumulative? I went for a walk to clear my head and when I came back I wrote ‘Black Limousine’ in one sitting, something I’ve very rarely if ever done before. It didn’t say anything new, but it gave me a sense of ownership over what others had said before.

That Saturday I sang ‘Black Limousine’ for the first time at the show in Bath I’d been rehearsing for with Ned the night my Dad died. Although not a man of faith myself, I was reminded of words from one of the oldest song books of them all “To everything there is a season”

Italia '90 10,330 day anniversary tour

Cari Amici,

To commemorate 10,330 day since Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillacci ended Irish dreams with a rebound into an open goal on a hot Roman night I’ll be returning to Italy to honour the fallen with a series of gigs in provincial hotspots the length and breadth of the boot.

If you happen to find yourself in the vicinity of any of the aforementioned hotspots and need an injection of miserabilism to temper the beautiful landscapes and delicious food it would be a pleasure to meet you in person!

Dead Capital out now!!!

Friends,

It's with the upmost pleasure I can announce my brand new album "Dead Capital" is released today. It was recorded last year in Berlin and features the multifarious talents of A.S.Fanning, Dan Fitzpatrick, Fredrik Sunesen & Candice Gordon. I'm tremendously proud of this body of work and hope it's a record you will return to many times in the future as the songs unfold themselves.A huge thanks to those who have helped along the road including Steve Fitzmaurice for the cover shot, Tom Hyatt for the sleeve design and Sainsburys Credit Card for it's 0% credit card which funded the vinyl pressing! You can stream it on all the usual sources here

Airport Hotel Video

It's with the upmost pleasure I  can share the video for Airport Hotel. It was directed by the über-talented Martine Skogstad with gorgeous cinematography by Daniel Jaroschik. All ably brought together by Jeanne Scahaise & Carol Van Hemelrijck, the Belgian powehouses at Hum Hum Production whose tireless devotion to method meant it was shot in an actual airport hotel!

The Culture of Resistance Live @ The Harrison

Here's a beautiful live video filmed at The Harrison in King's Cross by my esteemed friend Michael Sunderland with Joe Harvey-Whyte bringing some lonesome vibes on the pedal steel. Props to Steve Watson for recording the sound and the crowd for being great people!

Dead Capital Available to pre-order now!

I'm delighted to announce my brand new album is now available to pre-order on LP. CD & HQ Digital. https://louisbrennan.bandcamp.com/album/dead-capital

Dead Capital by Louis Brennan, releases 23 February 2018 1. Airport Hotel 2. Bit Part Actor 3. The Culture of Resistance 4. London 5. Get On Top 6. Silence 7. Selfish Lover 8. The Narrative of Self Defeat 9. I Walked Away from a Glittering Career 10. Home Sweet Home

LONDON VIDEO AVAILABLE FOR YOUR EYES AND MINDS!!

Hello to you all my friends. It's with the greatest pleasure that I can reveal the  new Video for London. My initial inspiration was to pay homage to the great "Take a Chance" video by ABBA but with children instead. When it became patently obvious this was unworkable and former Tánaiste Mary Harney was unavailable for the role of Anni-Frid Lyngstad I went back to the drawing board. I bought an old VHS camera complete with with 5 blank tapes for £15 off ebay and set off to film the hotspots of England's Capital and former seat of Imperial power.

Nothing says self-indulgent hipster like a fixation with obsolete technology and after multiple camera breakages and fixes it's safe to say I'll need to make a few more of these piles of crap with the Panasonic NVG101B to get my money's worth! A special thanks goes to Dave Lewis for the additional"on location" camera work.

Questionably directed by Louis Brennan Additional Camera by Dave Lewis www.louisbrennanmusic.com www.facebook.com/loubrennanmusic www.twitter.com/loubrennanmusic

London out Now!

I'm very pleased to announce the release of my new single London. I'd like to think that if Bruce Springsteen was more of a public transport guy with mental health issues living in the UK this is the kind of tune he might knock out between stadium shows. If you're into making playlists and all that jazz feel free to shoehorn it in somewhere. Warmest regards, Lou

London, a song by Louis Brennan on Spotify

Bit Part Actor Video

It’s with great pleasure that I get to share with you the video for my most recent single “Bit Part Actor” It was filmed in the post-industrial weirdscape of Canvey Island and features award winning anti-comic, actor and general renaissance man Edward Aczel as he drifts through a material and emotional dystopia on a mysterious existential journey. A sort of “High Plains Drifter” on the Thames Estuary is what Peter Bradshaw would undoubtedly call it.

Directed by Jez Leather @jukebxheadaches Starring Ed Aczel @edwardaczel www.louisbrennanmusic.com www.facebook.com/loubrennanmusic www.twitter.com/loubrennanmusic

It was shot on a fine spring day by my good friend and artistic polymath Jez Leather of multimedia renegades Jukebox Headaches with questionable help from myself in the art department. I’d love to hear your tinfoil hat conspiracy theories pertaining to the narrative content of the video as I’m sure you’ll all draw wildly different conclusions. If you enjoy it do please share the video with your “friends” and post your comments as any mild validation does wonders for my fragile artistic ego.

Bit Part Actor Out Now!!

My new single "Bit Part Actor" is out now across all streaming platforms. It was recorded at Candybomber in Berlin and features Fredrik Sunesen on drums, AS Fanning on Bass, Dan Fitzpatrick on Piano & Candice Gordon on Vocals. An attempt to shoehorn a theremin onto it was made and abandoned. The message is there is no message. Please enjoy, share, repeat ad nauseam. Happy Friday