INSTANT KARMA!
Conchúr White
I’M NEW HERE
The Portadown songwriter tapping into our “collective unconscious”
NATHANMAGEE;ANDREWBENGE/REDFERNS
THE term ‘dreampop’ is often used in these pages, but it seems to apply to Conchúr White’s work in aslightly different way to that of his ethereally inclined contemporaries. In the songs of his debut album Swirling Violets, dreams –surreal visions and imaginings of the afterlife –form arecurring theme, framed within beautifully soft-sung acoustic vignettes and chamber-pop confections. “I got friends who died athousand different times, strewn across the sky”, run the first words of opening track “The Holy Death”, luring us into aworld of “surreal settings with tangible messages”, as he has previously put it. Northern Irishman White (his first name is pronounced “Conor”) has seen his profile grow over the past few years thanks to slots opening for the likes of John Grant, John Cale and The Magnetic Fields. Meanwhile, last year’s “Atonia” single, inspired by studies of sleep paralysis, proved an enticing precursor to Swirling Violets.