JAPE (aka Ritchie Egan) will release his fifth album this month. ‘The Chemical Sea’ on Faction Records was recorded in Malmo, Sweden, Egan’s current base, with guest vocals from Conor O’Brien of Villagers. The new single ‘Seance of Light’ is a synth-led dark pop groover.
After an extensive Australian and European tour, Egan relocated to Malmo in 2012, where ‘Séance of Light’ was written and recorded. It is the Jape record that Egan has not had full creative control over, asking for feedback and input from fellow member Glen Keating, something he feels “was inspiring and helped me push myself so much harder.”
Conor O’Brien of Villagers also features on the record, collaborating on the track ‘Ribbon, Ribbon, Ribbon’, with the mixing left in the capable hands of the extraordinarily talented David Wrench, who was behind the mixing of the FKA Twigs, Caribou, and Jungle records earlier this year. Egan asserts, “he was probably one of the few people in the world I would have trusted to mix because this record means so much to me.Having won the Choice Music Prize for the Best Irish Album twice (the only act to do so in the history of the award), the strength of Jape’s first two singles to be taken from ‘This Chemical Sea’ certainly leaves the group as likely contenders to pick up the prize for a third time
Jape will be playing tracks from the new album when his band appears at Kasbah Social Club, Dock Road on Saturday February 21.
#newmusic JAPE – New album and tour
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