Stomptown Brass return with ‘The Earth Was Flat’
The Dublin-based brass band have released the first single of their debut album, marking 10 years in existence.
‘The Earth Was Flat’ is the first single from the long-awaited album, titled It Did Went Down, the band’s first since 2022’s track ‘Let Me Stay’, and since they restarted in 2021.
It features the vocals of Ruth McGill, and is a track that came out of a theatre show that the band toured called Requiem for the Truth, where McGill played a preacher to a New Orleans jazz funeral for truth.
The vocal for this song was ad libbed originally in the show with a loop pedal…the text for the vocal is taken from the show script and this section is based on the work of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in which he grapples with the limits of truth and objectivity.
The song arrives today with a music video.
Stomptown Brass’s It Did Went Down is due in Spring 2024, and ‘The Earth Was Flat’ is on DSPs on January 31st.
Stomptown Brass Tour Dates
- Sat 2nd March 2024 – Monroe’s Live, Galway
Fri 29th March 2024 – Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick (Good Friday Late Show) - Sat 6th April 2024 – The Academy, Dublin
- Sat 13th April 2024 – Cyprus Avenue, Cork
About Stomptown Brass
For ten years, 8-piece urban funk brass act Stomptown Brass have shocked and delighted audiences across Ireland and abroad since their inception in 2014. Through countless festival appearances and a number of wild and wacky productions, they have built a reputation as one of the Ireland’s most unique and dynamic ensemble acts. Blending sweeping soundscapes, relentless rhythms, groovy drops and captivating visuals, the expansive band line-up of two Drummers, two Trombones, two Trumpets, sixteen hands, one Sax and one big filthy Tuba are known to blow a serious racket that’ll get any crowd on their feet.
Aside from performing raucous slots at festivals like Electric Picnic, Beyond the Pale, Another Love Story, Kaleidoscope, Sea Sessions, Indiependence or old-Longitude, the band are known for some unique and spectacular theatrical productions that have beguiled audiences across all ages.
It all started in early 2015 when the band decided to unofficially march the route of Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day parade after the last float had departed. What resulted was a crowd gathering the likes of which they did not expect, following their every step and creating a series of manic street parties across the city. After a few friendly discussions with the authorities, the band decided to take their show to the stage first before hitting the road, and embarked on the ‘Locomotive’ tour in 2016 to promote their debut EP of the same name.
Cutting their teeth on the nationwide live circuit and finding their feet at the end of their legs, they opened for some of the modern great brass bands such as Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Soul Rebels Brass Band, and Hot 8 Brass Band. With their debut tour selling a lot more tickets than they expected, they finished up with a sell-out headline show at The Sugar Club in Dublin, a stage which to this day they call home.
Eager not to stagnate in an annual routine of bouncing between summer festivals and autumn tours, the band explored new pastures in 2017, developing an immersive theatre show in the style of a New Orleans jazz funeral…for the truth. ‘Requiem for the Truth’, produced alongside Collapsing Horse Theatre Company, sold out back-to-back shows at the Dublin Fringe, Norway Fringe, Cork Jazz and Waterford Imagine Arts festivals, before returning home for two nights at Dublin’s Pepper Canister Church. Each show featured guest eulogies delivered by a diverse range of academics, poets, actors, musicians, and The Viper ™, before concluding with audience members carrying the coffin to its final resting place at nearby location, where the Stomptown street party would commence.
2019 saw the band develop a show for their tiniest but most important demographic, those aged 2-9 years old. Through their project ‘Curious Eyes & Ears’, they produced a multi-faceted kids show that demonstrated the foundations of music theory in a fun, creative and interactive way. To top it off, the band hosted a nationwide callout for a young brass whizz to perform with them on stage at the Meeting House Square in Temple Bar, Dublin.
Basking in the feel-good glow of a successful all-ages production and positive media reception, the band got back to business later that year with the release of ‘One Last Time’ , where a darker, more texture-driven sound emerged. Combining their second-line jazz roots with a more eclectic mix of styles and sounds, ‘One Last Time’ brought more modern jazz forms to the forefront, incorporating different electronic musical elements previously alien to the band.
In collaboration with Javier Longobardo, freelance artist and animator from Granada, Spain, the band released a visceral animated music video which was shortlisted for awards at the New York Independent Film Festival, the Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival, Mexico’s Cut Out Festival, Sick‘n’Wrong Film Festival in Florida and the Oviclip Festival in Asturias.”
After spending a few years shouting about a Dublin show that seemed to constantly reschedule just in time for every fresh lockdown, the Stomptown crew roared back into life in late 2021, this time bringing to the table a more dark, clubby, electronic-infused sound which had been bleeding into their music over the previous few years. Following a fresh tour of Ireland the year after, it was time to finally put down a marker to celebrate a wild journey over the decade and release a debut album. With a number of gigs in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin to launch it, Stomptown Brass’s It Did Went Down is powerful statement of the condensed energy of a decade of playing, listening and always remaining open to new influences. There is some theatre, some soaring soul, a few dingy beats and a lot of incessant grooves to pull you into a world of brass and hold you there for an exhilarating!
Under the wicked sorcery of their musical director, composer, arranger and trombone enchantress James O’Leary, Stomptown Brass are itching to demonstrate what a range of styles, moods, colours and textures can be squeezed out of a few humble horns, singers and drums!
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Website: www.stomptownbrass.com
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