Conchúr White

“I like surreal settings, but with tangible messages,” says Conchúr White. A singer-songwriter from Co Armagh, White navigates the dreamlike and the grounded with blissful fluency on his beautifully lambent debut album. Swirling Violets is allusive and intimate, unearthly yet instantly accessible: touching on fully felt themes with grace and lightness, it’s a richly imagined album of multitudes from an instinctive talent. As White explains it, “There wasn’t a conscious theme, though the songs operate in the same sort of space, that sense of surrealism. There’s ghosts, there's other worlds. There's a cosmic feeling, questions about the beginning and the end and dreams. And then there’s simpler songs, love songs about the feelings of infatuation you have when you’re young…”  A music graduate who has also worked alongside young people with mental health issues, White’s story began in bands. He played in atmospheric indie-rockers Silences before their split allowed Conchúr to develop his solo voice at his own pace. That sense of freedom colours Conchúr’s music. On the Bikini Crops and Dreamers EPs, he filtered the influences of acts such as Arctic Monkeys & Father John Misty into songs at once playful, referential and experiential.   With praise from Mojo, Uncut, Record Collector, Under the Radar, Steve Lamacq, Radio 6 and others under his belt, he has also notched up touring slots with The Magnetic Fields, Villagers, Billie Marten, Richard Hawley & John Grant.