MONCRIEFF

In the organizer's words:

The great tragedy of life brought the Irish singer and songwriter Chris Breheny aka Moncrieff to music - and you can hear that immediately, in every song and every note. Moncrieff tells in his soulful, honest songs about all the fates and setbacks that affect everyone in one way or another. With four EPs so far, each presenting six new songs, he played himself into the heads and hearts of many Irish and British, with the singles "Warm" and "Serial Killer" he achieved his first chart successes. Around the release of his new EP "Highways & Hurricanes", the solo artist, who has been living in Berlin since the fall of 2022, will go on a big tour at the end of the year. Between November 27 and December 6, he will make guest appearances for six shows in Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Hamburg and Cologne. Yes, of course: Chris Breheny has always liked music - but always only as a nice background, as a soundtrack that makes life more colorful and richer. The young man, who grew up in an Irish village far away from any music scenes, did not have his own music career in mind: "In these parts of Ireland, music was rather something that was looked down upon. Instead, when you were young, you tended to do sports to belong," says Moncrieff. Instead, it took two really tough strokes of fate to mature budding law student Chris Breheny into musician Moncrieff. Chris' becoming an artist began with the tragic loss of his sister: "I'd skip school every few days, ride my brother's moped to the loneliest place I could find, and listen to music alone for hours." Although he hadn't written a single song at that point, music became a constant source of comfort and encouragement, an increasingly important outlet. After all, "otherwise, at 16, you don't have the channels to express your feelings," he says. He listened for hours to the classic debit music of Otis Redding, Etta James and Ray Charles, which often also told of serious setbacks. The grounded and sublime nature of this music would later have a lasting influence on his sound as well. Two years later, life pushed him even deeper into a hole - and finally toward songwriting: his older brother also died as suddenly as he did unexpectedly. And just as suddenly, he felt that the best way to express his pain was through writing his own songs. The tragedy and disintegration of the family made him realize that music was more for him, "that it was one thing I couldn't live without." He wanted to live his dream - and he wanted to do it badly. "I just had to go to London and make music: as much as I could, anytime. From that point on, I just wrote songs: I was fully focused on figuring out who I was, what I wanted to say." Over his first two EPs, "The Early Hurts" (2019) and "The Class of 2020" (2020), he found that two modes of expression were synonymous for him: One is the purely acoustic - just him, his voice and a piano. And on the other, embedding his soul influences in contemporary electrified pop. How intensely he operates in both variants was quickly mirrored to him: Grandseigneur Elton John introduced Moncrieff on his own radio show and celebrated the young artist almost anthemically; Adele brought him live on stage; and techno star Avicii invited him to joint songwriting sessions (which unfortunately never happened after the latter also died unexpectedly). What unites all of Moncrieff's songs is their brute authenticity and sincerity: "It's important to me that people know it's real when I open my mouth. It's always about stories that people can ideally relate to." -

Price information:

25,00 € plus fees