Mood music to groove to from Jeremy Hickey

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

It could well be one of the gigs of the autumn – and it’s free. Rarely Seen Above Ground (RASG) plays Róisín Dubh on Thursday next, September 12, fresh from a headlining slot in the Body & Soul area at the Electric Picnic.

RSAG is a one-man show, put together by Kilkenny based drummer, Jeremy Hickey. He released Organic Sampler, his Choice Prize nominated debut, in 2008 and followed it with Be It Right Or Wrong in 2010.

In July this year, Rarely Seen Above Ground returned with the EP, Rotate and Jeremy is currently working on his third album.

“The whole idea was to bring that out before I went to finish off an album,” he says.  “I have songs there; it’s just a question of picking the right ones and finishing them off.”

RSAG’s rhythm based sound was arresting from the get go, and Jeremy plans to continue in that vein, while adding some new elements to the mix.

“On Organic Sampler, you have the main disk which had a post-punk, funky thing going on,” he says. “Then you had the bonus disk, which was a bit more soundtrack-y and instrumental. Then I went on to do Be It Right Or Wrong, which I did in Leo Pearsen’s studio in Thomastown, that was a different sound.

“Now I’ve gotten some better gear, and I’ve gotten back to the process and the techniques I uses on my first album. Now, it’s slightly evolving into a more electronic sound. I got a couple of synthesisers.”

Jeremy is currently recording at home, which he enjoys, but there also is an advantage to working in someone else’s studio.

“I like the idea of being able to work on something, that’s not exactly a nine-to-five thing,” he says about working from his own house. “But I suppose there’s a plus and minus side to it. It’s nice to have it there so you can work whenever you can, but the other side of it is that it’s nice to have a place to have to go to at a certain time, and then go home.  It’d be nice to have a studio that wasn’t in my house, but that’s just the way it is these days.”

RSAG is probably best described as ‘mood music’ and Jeremy draws a lot of inspiration from film soundtracks and novels.

“I suppose what I’ve done with Rotate and what I’d like to do with the album is basically try and write tunes with themes that would be inspired by a movie, or a book,  or an idea, and that mood is going to stay with the song until it’s finished.

“If a lyric isn’t there at the start, then the one that’s added will have to suit the mood,” Jeremy adds. “It’s almost like a soundtrack, but there’s no real story, it’s just the way it happens. The way I like to work is one week I could watch a movie and be in a certain mood, and hence a track would come from that. Another week it could be something different.”

Given that Rarely Seen Above Ground is a one-man operation, how does Jeremy ensure that the project keeps evolving?

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.