Twisted Pepper, Dublin
It has been a dizzying 12 months for Mmoths, aka Jack Colleran, a teenager from Newbridge, Co Kildare, who makes tender, poignant electronic music. Colleran signed a deal with Street Quality Entertainment, received tens of thousands of plays on his Soundcloud page, and was lauded by blogs, new fans and fellow musicians.
Flying Lotus revealed himself as a fan, Colleran played Manchester’s Warehouse Project alongside Aphex Twin and Zomby, and he’ll soon make his way to the gladiatorial indie arena of SXSW, while in April, he’ll support Hype Williams at a show in Paris.
Of course, with such a rapid acceleration comes great expectations, and a sold-out crowd at the Twisted Pepper on Middle Abbey Street in Dublin awaited the arrival of a guy who transfixes with his modern electronic chilly ambience. One of the reasons Mmoths’s music is so interesting is the considered approach that belies his youth, and it’s these rather stunning subtleties fluttering throughout the set that demand attention, especially on Summer. The reworking of vocals from Keep Shelly In Athens has shifted Heart’s sweetness into a rather twee arena, but whimsy never threatens to overshadow, with the oddly familiar breathiness of the set’s sentiment occasionally giving way to beefy bass and welcome rises in the BPM.
Electronic acts make an increasing effort to expand beyond the typical swaying-behind-a-laptop live set-up that the constraints of performing such music tend to create. And although Mmoths has thrown in some visuals as an added stimulus to his presence on stage, there’s still a great deal of room for expanding on his recitals as a live act to engage the audience. But there is an innocent simplicity to Mmoths’s music, and it’s this bare-bones ability to evoke warmth and poignancy that wins over the initially rather awkward and young head-nodding crowd.
