Weather-beaten** **Indie Folk // Discovering music via Myspace is a bit of a game of chance. Most of the Friends Requests^® I use to get are pure rubbish, but every now and then talented musicians dare to be heard. I the case of Gillicuddy, artist-name and album- title didn’t made me expect too much. Still, after the first few tones of this tiny EP I knew Gillicuddy would be worth to be heard by a greater audience.

East Frisia-born Andreas Rohden aka Gillicuddy spices his compositions with a lot of references to seafaring and life at the seaside in general. For “It This Greenland Already”, Rohden sings emphatic and slightly shiftless over raw guitar-chords, shifting from bare-to-the-bone Bluesrock to Avant-Garde Pop and vice versa. Afterwards “Agrippa’s Trilemma” begins quite similar but fades into field-recordings just as one would expect the chorus to pop in. Cool maneuver, made me think of Gastre del Sol. “One Day in the Life of Shmallhans” after the smooth instrumental “Hallig” is a creaking waltz and drunken shanty. Rohden layers his different vocal identities above each other and manages to create an authentic honky-tonk feel.

Gillicuddy’s EP “Shmallhans is Kuechemeister” refers to an old German saying that is used if there’s no food left in the kitchen and “Slender Hans is Chef”. As quaint as the title, Rohden voices his grumpy Folk-tunes with a good amount of humor though his music ain’t good-humored. That’s a rare and dangerous move as serious listeners might feel rejected by Rohden’s geek humor. For those who can imagine a mixture of Tom Waits, Jim O’Rourke and Modest Mouse this edgy EP might be suitable!

MP3 Folk Music Download

Direct Download: Gillicuddy - “Shmalhans is Kuechenmeister” ZIP

Artist Website: www.gillicuddy.net