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Over the past three years Mick Lynch and Kevin May of pop/folk act The Guggenheim Grotto have touched U.S. and U.K. audiences in a way the duo couldn’t have imagined. From setting out as Dublin songwriter circuit regulars alongside artists like Damien Rice and Glen Hansard, to building a devoted cult following in the U.S. with warm embraces from media and competitive iTunes charting, the band has captivated audiences and tastemakers on both sides of the pond.
TGG now returns with its sophomore record, Happy The Man, which boasts the band’s same signature mix of timeless pop, folk and soaring melodies, but offers a greater maturity and a higher sense of self-consciousness.
“We have naturally become more certain of what we are as a band and what we were capable of,” said primary songwriter Kevin May. “With this album I made a conscious effort of working ideas, thoughts and musings on self-awareness and enlightenment into the songs.”
The band’s debut album, …Waltzing Alone – a multi-instrumental masterpiece so wistful, earnest, heart-on-your-sleeve – was self-released to immediate critical acclaim in Ireland on September 9, 2005, and its first promotional single “Told You So” rapidly became a firm favorite on Irish airwaves. Within weeks the song climbed to No. 12 on the Irish National Airplay Chart.
In America, awareness of the band began to rise thanks to the support of DJs like David Dye at WXPN, Kate Bradley on XM50’s The Loft and Nic Harcourt at KCRW, and in March 2006 the band travelled to Austin to perform a brace of gigs at SxSW. TGG released …Waltzing Alone in the U.S. on New York-based new model indie label United For Opportunity on September 26, 2006, and in November of that year embarked on its first U.S. national tour.
Now with four U.S. tours under its belt, the band has found itself having made huge in-roads with American audiences and industry alike – from playing listening rooms across the country to large festivals, performing on tastemaker radio programs to Charleston’s nationally syndicated Mountain Stage radio/TV show. Songs from the record have been used in major network primetime TV shows like One Tree Hill and Brothers And Sisters, and the album met warm embraces from U.S. national publications like Paste Magazine, as well as regional press like The Boston Globe and The Washington Post.
The big kicker, however, might have been landing …Waltzing Alone’s opening track, “Philosophia” as the iTunes Free Single of the Week from April 17 – 23, 2007. Within only a day the album rocketed to the No. 1 downloaded folk album on iTunes, where it stayed for weeks. In early 2008, “Told You So” was also chosen for the January 2008 Starbucks Hear Music sampler titled Across The Pond, on which the band was one of only two indie acts alongside notable U.K. and Irish artists such as Damien Rice, James Blunt and Amy Winehouse.
The Guggenheim Grotto’s debut LP wooed us in the most poetic of ways, but Happy The Man brings the band to a whole new level – decidedly upbeat and delving into more sampling and electronic techniques, while still invoking beauty and pain in ways that celebrate our common human experience. Kevin and Mick explore a range of new sounds along with drummer and producer Shane Power for a full-bodied, rich album that showcases the band’s knack for instrumental choice while proving itself both contemporary and timeless.
“There's a lyrical thread throughout the album in that many of the songs explore our habit of holding onto things – lovers, a place in time, resisting change – and all the sadness that this brings us,” said May. “We wanted to sing joyfully about sadness in the world.” Though Happy The Man points out “the everyman” as far from perfection or immune to pain, it also truly embodies the concept of using art to share our humanity and create beauty from both the joyful and the most tender moments in life.
This, indeed, is The Guggenheim Grotto’s gift to us – eleven new and compelling tracks that blend a philosophical perspective with poeticism and set it to timeless, soaring pop melodies.
Happy The Man was released digitally for a limited time in the U.S. and Ireland on October 7, 2008 and quickly made its way to No. 1 on the U.S. iTunes Folk Chart. The record will be available in stores January 27, 2009, and the band will be touring nationally to support it.
For more information on The Guggenheim Grotto, please visit www.guggenheimgrotto.com
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