Lloyd Cole

Lloyd Cole

3Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Monday 27th January 2025

Doors 7pm

Tickets from €45.70 including booking fee

English singer-songwriter and musician Lloyd Cole has had an impressive career spanning decades in Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and as a solo artist. Cole's cuttingly literate lyrics, unabashedly romantic stance, and knack for melodies both simple and ornate form a solid base for his frequent genre shifts. Lloyd has just announced his headline gig at the 3Olympia Theatre Dublin on Monday, 27th January 2025.

Born in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, Lloyd studied law for a year at University College London but later switched to the University of Glasgow, where he studied philosophy and English and met the future members of the Commotions. The Commotions released their debut studio album, Rattlesnakes, in 1984, and two more albums before disbanding in 1989. 

Starting off fronting The Commotions and delivering some of the '80s most iconic jangle pop songs -- like "Perfect Skin" and the quintessential Rattlesnakes album -- Cole soon undertook a solo career that didn't stay in one place for long. He went from straightforward rock on 1990's self-titled album to lushly orchestrated pop on 1991's Don't Get Weird on Me Babe; he swerved into jangle pop on 1995's Love Story, then he settled down to make country rock-inspired music for a time before delving into electronics for a record of duets with Hans-Joachim Roedelius on 2013's Selected Studies, Vol. 1. Albums made in the wake of this newfound interest, like 2023's On Pain, merged the warm songcraft of earlier work with the colder textures of electronic pop. 

Taking a break from his burgeoning career as a synth boffin, Cole spent time working on a box set comprised of the complete recordings made with The Commotions Collected Recordings was released in 2015, and he and his backing band the Leopards hit the road to promote it. Hardly missing a beat, Cole released another box set in 2017, In New York: Collected Recordings 1988-1996, made up of four albums, a full album of unreleased songs, and a disc of demos. Returning to new projects, Cole found a middle ground between his usual singer/songwriterly approach and his growing body of electronic projects with 2019's Guesswork, a set of songs performed almost entirely on synthesizers, though the occasional guitars, as played by Cole and old mate Clark, do break through. 

Unable to play live shows due to COVID-19 he responded by spending a week in June of 2020 creating electronic pieces using a modular synthesizer and a random digital noise generator called an Ieaskul F. Mobenthey Dunst. The results were released as Dunst in October. Cole's 2023 album On Pain was a step closer to synth pop, with the majority of the songs built on spare synths, treated vocals, and lyrics that largely dealt in impressions instead of his usual graceful storytelling. Also helping out were formerCommotions Clark and Cowan, who co-wrote four of the album's songs. Cole recorded much of the album himself in his home studio, then finalized and mixed it with producer Chris Hughes in England. 

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID ABOUT LLOYD COLE’S 2023 ALBUM ‘ON PAIN’

“Ghostly electronica accompanies meditations on loss, mortality and the passage of time on Cole’s absorbing new album.” 4* Sunday Times

“Grappling with the ineffable…a richly detailed synth-pop LP of admirable sophistication…it’s Cole’s growing sound design expertise – and ever unique lyrical voice – that ensure his 40-year career still has legs.” 4* MOJO

“’A storied songwriter comes of age (again)… He too has become more of what he always was. And somehow he’s achieved that by paring his music down to its rawest essence.” 8/10 Uncut

“…beautiful and special, the kind of minimalist adventure we hoped Mark Hollis would return with one day, only with added tales of bloodthirsty wolves and drug-addled rockers...Cole is on a roll. He’s still making erudite melodies, but now there’s something new and other to them. At 62, ‘On Pain’ is the sound of a man just getting started.” 8/10 Classic Pop

“Cole’s ruminations on the human condition have rarely been as finely tuned as this.”  4* The Sun

 

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