Instant chemistry is something that doesn’t happen very often in music – but when it does it’s almost like it was meant to be. It’s what happened when two London-based musicians met at 2am at a festival jam session. Alchemical is the resulting collaboration between Irish-born singer songwriter Aisling Iris and London-born bassist/producer Mike Flynn. Combining their shared love of jazz, widescreen melodies, heartfelt lyrics and a melting pot of grooves, beats and styles, Alchemical is a forward-looking, free-thinking musical adventure seeking out funky new destinations from future soul-funk to next-gen jazz and beyond.
Discovering a huge amount of musical common ground their writing process took on its own momentum as one idea soon led to another. Mike recording arrangements and melodies before Aisling would weave lyrics and her own counterpoint melodic lines on top, the musical sketches soon became songs. This burst of creativity took place throughout the political and social turmoil of the summer of 2017, inspiring the pair to pour their thoughts and feelings into a rich body of songs that range from the reflective and melancholic, to the hypnotic, danceable and soulfully uplifting.
Drawing on his love of broken beats, hip-hop fusion, funk, jazz and drum’n’bass Mike used Ableton Live to capture his ideas as spontaneously as possible – building layers of chords, bass lines and melodies all on the bass – drawing on jazz improvisation in search of that unique melodic theme. Aisling in turn created lush layers of vocals, instinctively finding her own harmonic colours to which she set her thought-provoking, poignant and disarmingly honest lyrics about the world and her personal experiences.
Bringing many talented musical friends on board – including award-winning jazz musicians
Rob Luft on guitar
Phil Meadows on sax and flute
Andrew McLean on drums
Pianist David Austin Grey
Pianist Sam Leak
– Alchemical will be releasing an EP in early 2019 with plans to perform the music live.
50% of all sales for this single will go to the very important charity
Warchild
www.facebook.com/warchilduk.
ABOUT WAR CHILD UK
War Child is the only specialist charity for children affected by conflict. For more than two decades we’ve been driven by a single goal – for no child’s life to be torn apart by war. We aim to reach children as early as possible when conflict breaks out and stay to support them through their recovery – keeping them safe, helping them learn and cope with their experiences, and equipping them with skills for the future.
Web:
www.warchild.org.uk