Instant chemistry is something that doesn’t happen very often in music – but when it does it’s almost like it was meant to be. It’s what happened when two London-based musicians met at 2am at a festival jam session. Alchemical is the resulting collaboration between Irish-born singer songwriter Aisling Iris and London-born bassist/producer Mike Flynn. Combining their shared love of jazz, widescreen melodies, heartfelt lyrics and a melting pot of grooves, beats and styles, Alchemical is a forward-looking, free-thinking musical adventure seeking out funky new destinations from future soul-funk to next-gen jazz and beyond.

Discovering a huge amount of musical common ground their writing process took on its own momentum as one idea soon led to another. Mike recording arrangements and melodies before Aisling would weave lyrics and her own counterpoint melodic lines on top, the musical sketches soon became songs. This burst of creativity took place throughout the political and social turmoil of the summer of 2017, inspiring the pair to pour their thoughts and feelings into a rich body of songs that range from the reflective and melancholic, to the hypnotic, danceable and soulfully uplifting.

Drawing on his love of broken beats, hip-hop fusion, funk, jazz and drum’n’bass Mike used Ableton Live to capture his ideas as spontaneously as possible – building layers of chords, bass lines and melodies all on the bass – drawing on jazz improvisation in search of that unique melodic theme. Aisling in turn created lush layers of vocals, instinctively finding her own harmonic colours to which she set her thought provoking, poignant and disarmingly honest lyrics about the world and her personal experiences.

Bringing many talented musical friends on board – including award-winning jazz musicians Rob Luft on guitar and Phil Meadows on sax and flute, plus leading London drummer Andrew McLean, and Birmingham-based keyboardist David Austin Grey – Alchemical will be releasing an EP in early 2018 with plans to perform the music live. 

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Music

State Of Grace EP

The State of Grace EP is out now! Featuring four lush, deeply grooving tracks written by Aisling Iris and Mike Flynn with special guests Rob Luft, Sam Crowe, Ben Sarfas, Chris Jerome, and Andrew McLean, the EP draws on head-bobbing funk, trip-hop, symphonic soul and free-flying drum'n'bass. 

 

 
 
The new collaborative project from singer Aisling Iris and bassist/composer Mike Flynn
Aisling Iris and Mike Flynn

Photo by Emile Holba