Diverse Kormac is back with pared-back show

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Playing a mish mash of hip-hop and house, Kormac brings his Live AV(audio/visual) show to Róisín Dubh on Friday, April 2. Kormac is known to Galway – and festival audiences – for playing with a big band, which includes a brass section. On this tour, the DJ has a more stripped-back set-up, with just himself and a drummer taking to the stage. Why has he decided to go with this streamlined line-up?

“I spent the last few years travelling around the world, DJing on my own,” Kormac says. “Part of that was I would always bring a very synchronised visual set-up with me. I suppose I wanted to be able to play in smaller clubs that I wouldn’t have done with the band.

“I wanted to put time, effort, money, etc, into making a show that looks really good, but that showcases what I do, in terms of making music,” he adds. “A lot of people in Ireland would know me from festivals, where I have the band with me, but I do other stuff as well. I wanted to show a bit of diversity.”

Kormac’s last album, Doorsteps, was released in 2014, and he is currently working on the follow-up in his Temple Bar studio.

“I work business hours, I suppose, during the week,” he says. “I’ll do a 9-5 or 9-6, writing music. I’m not really a night owl when it comes to writing. I work here every day – I’m sitting on a bunch of new stuff at the moment.

“The writing is the thing I torture myself more about. I probably put together a live show easier than I would a record. But I really like it, it’s something different again. . . I don’t want to say too much about it! I’ve a bunch of new hip-hop and I’ve a bunch of house stuff that I’m working on.”

If Doorsteps is anything to go by, Kormac’s next album is a record to look forward to. Doorsteps featured the sublime Another Screen, a collaboration with Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. How did Kormac end up working with the Scotsman?

“We have a mutual friend in Dec Forde, who’s a concert promoter here,” he says.  “We were going through potential collaborators for the Doorsteps album and Dec suggested that I should meet Irvine.

“I went home that day and wrote a tune with him in mind. It came really quickly, in a day or so, because I knew exactly who we were writing for.  So I sent it to him, and he was up for it. A year passed where we were trying to get in the same room, because Irvine lives in the States.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.