New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Belfast born singer-songwriter and producer Gareth Dunlop was fortunate enough to remain a busy man during the global pandemic. Having established Sycamore Studios in the city just prior to lockdown, he was subsequently in a position to record not only his own long-awaited second album, Animal (Zenith Café/Membran), but also produced new records by friends and fellow Northern Irish musicians Foy Vance (2021's Signs Of Life on Ed Sheeran's Gingerbread Man Records) and Lee Rogers (Gameblood out spring 2022). All three artists will soon be on tour together, with Dunlop on additional duty as a member of Vance's live band.
Animal consists of a diverse set of songs that include the soulful and anthemic "Right About Ready" and first single "Look Back Smiling," which evoke the '80s yet exude a timeless quality, the atmospheric "
Sorrow" and "Prisoner Of My Past," which both channel late period Roxy Music, the laid-back '60s dream pop vibe of "Humans," plus a memorable title song that adds an electronic bounce to its subtle groove.
Of "Look Back Smiling" - with video starring his charming son & daughter - Dunlop states: "I wrote it as a message of sorts for my son. In these weird pandemic years I had noticed him retreating into himself. He'd missed out on most of his first year at school and bypassed an important year of making those first connections with would be friends. It set my head off in a direction of wanting him to grab life by the horns and be as much of a kid as possible before the real trials and tribulations of life seeped in. In a time when it was hard to be a normal kid, I was desperate for his young sense of wonder and childlike fearlessness to rule his heart. When I was young I couldn't wait to grow up, and now that I'm older I'd give anything to go back and be a kid again."
Gareth Dunlop has been recognised as an accomplished talent ever since the BBC tipped him as "one to watch" in 2010 when he was not long out of his teens. In the decade since he has released several singles, a handful of EPs and one album that have been musically eclectic yet have all showcased his highly soulful voice, with several of his songs going on to be used in the hit TV series Nashville, other shows (Lucifer, This Is U, Bones, Suits), movies (The Best Of Me, Safe Haven) and commercials (Disney, Subaru). He also has songwriting credits for recordings by a diverse range of stars that include T.I.,
Tim McGraw &
Faith Hill and John Oates.
However, prior to the 2020 lockdown, Dunlop was just as likely to be heard by live audiences as he forged a reputation as a magnetic and charismatic performer on frequent headlining tours and support slots to the likes of Van Morrison, Jeff Beck,
Snow Patrol and
James Morrison. In his home territory, the Irish News praised Dunlop for his "distinctive croon and ear for sharp melodic/lyrical hooks", while
National Rock Review stated he is "arguably one of Northern Ireland's greatest singer/songwriters from the past decade".
Inspired by icons such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan,
Jimi Hendrix and Tom Waits, plus a soupçon of Pink Floyd, Dunlop picked up a guitar aged 14 and soon began performing covers and original songs in live venues around Northern Ireland, RoI and the rest of the UK. In 2011, he won a Young Songwriter of the Year award in Belfast that not only earned him an invite to collaborate with seasoned writers in Nashville, an experience he has repeated many times since, but it also enabled him to tour the US extensively.
Having spent so long away from Belfast following his initial breakthrough, Dunlop decided to record and co-produce his 2017 debut album, No. 79, in stripped-back fashion at home - literally - with Nashville based writer
Bobby Hamrick and compatriot Alastair McMillan, who had also recorded Dunlop's first studio sessions at Dublin's esteemed Windmill Lane and has engineered for U2, The
Rolling Stones and Van Morrison. A winning fusion of folk and soul, the album earned critical acclaim and was playlisted on several Irish and UK radio stations, while in RoI it earned an Album of the Week slot on the prestigious RTE1.
US TOUR DATES WITH FOY VANCE
May 6 @ Levon Helm Studios - Woodstock, NY
May 7 @ Levon Helm Studios - Woodstock, NY
May 8 @ Theatre of Living Arts - Philadelphia, PA
May 10 @ Birchmere - Alexandria, VA
May 11 @ Webster Hall - New York, NY
May 13 @ Royale - Boston, MA
May 14 @ Center for the Arts - Homer, NY
May 17 @ Memorial Hall - Cincinnati, OH
May 18 @
James K. Polk Theater, Tennessee Performing Arts Center - Nashville, TN
May 20 @ The Cedar Cultural Center - Minneapolis, MN
May 21 @ Athenaeum Theatre - Chicago, IL
May 26 @ Neptune Theatre - Seattle, wA
May 27 @
Aladdin Theatre - Portland, OR
May 31 @ Regent Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
