For our next LCM featured artist we stay in London to meet Rob Corcoran and his very talented band The Necessary Evils. You might remember Rob and his band as they supported Danni Nicholls at her album launch at SPOC last year. Since then Rob has released a very good 12-track new debut studio album entitled 'Inverse Alchemy'. Which is well worth exploring. Our LCM #SongOfTheDay 'Distant Light'  is one of the new tracks.

If you would like to see Rob live, he is performing at the Green Note in Camden on the 8th April with Jason McNiff. 

This is heart-on-sleeve, alt-folk, americana with a Dublin accent.  Rob Corcoran has sailed the high seas of love, heartbreak and excess, and (so far) lives to tell, through his gripping, visceral persona.  Juxtaposed with his catchy melodies are tales of heartache, addiction, depression, regret, refugees in flight, aged victims of clerical abuse...but there’s also light, and a whole lot of heart.  Corcoran is a musician who finds kind of mystical solace, and even strange comfort, in the inevitability of human failure that haunts all of us.  

These songs and Rob’s performances have earned him a loyal following and a reputation as one of the most engaging troubadours around.  He was born and raised in Dublin, a city more familiar with the traditions of music and stories than most.  Family gatherings always ended in song.  There was a guitar lying around the house upon which he learned his first chords and it was the songs of the old-timers that captivated him most. 

“When my friends were all listening to Nirvana I was listening to cassette mix-tapes I had made from my Dad’s old vinyl records, scratches and all.  I was mesmerized by Bob Dylan in my early teens.  That changed everything.  Songs became my obsession”. 

Dylan was a gateway to Hank Williams and Leonard Cohen, and later to cult heroes like Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams; true heavyweights of introspection.    Their influence, all that heart-on-sleeve honesty, is very present on this album but Rob’s turn of phrase and the vulnerability with which he writes and sings are very much his own.    Rob made London his home in 2011 and it was here he met and later formed The Necessary Evils.    

The Necessary Evils consists of some of the best and most established players on the London alt-country scene.  They include violinist Basia Bartz (Dana Immanuel and the Stolen Band, Naddine Khouri etc), multi-instrumentalist Lyle Zimmerman (Halleluiah Trails, Verklempt Family), cajon player Hjordis Moon-Badford (Dana Immanuel and the Stolen Band), bass player Anna Robinson (Hank Wangford, Norton Money) Jamie Shaw (Norton Money, Jason McNiff).  Produced by Roger Askew, whose prior production credits include Christy Moore and Peggy Seeger and who has played alongside the likes of Joe Strummer and Wilco Johnson.  Roger also features as a musician on this album.  
 
In 2015 Rob released his solo E.P. 'The Heart, the Head and the Long Since Dead" and a year later, with the Necessary Evils released "Live in Dublin" (digital release only)  On December 1st 2017 Rob released the long awaited full studio album "Inverse Alchemy"