ZOEY VAN GOEY are a trio originally from Canada (Matt Brennan), Ireland (Michael John McCarthy) and England (Kim Moore). They met in Glasgow in 2006. Debut album The Cage Was Unlocked All Along conjures up a wide-eyed rites of passage, meshing the everyday with the fantastical; the optimism and adventure of youth with the anxieties and pressures of the modern world… We find bandits and buried treasure co-existing with tales of TEFL students teaching in Fukuyama; dark ruminations on the coming apocalypse alongside romantic kidnap ballads; a surreal journey that’s as melodically whimsical as it is structurally complex. It’s a work of charming ambition loaded with full-blooded sing-along choruses, understated keyboards, close harmonies and irresistible melodies – all underpinned by various musical ephemera, including vintage Super Mario sound effects.
‘Irresistible pop thrills… definitely one of Scotland’s finest at the moment’ (Sunday Mail)
‘Anthemic, insightful indie-folk with wonderful sparkles of humour’ (Clash Magazine)
‘ZvG have a pronounced sound of their own … an excellent album’ (The Skinny)
‘An irresistible debut album’ (Scotland On Sunday)
‘Exquisite indie folk-pop’ (Metro)
‘Charming folk-pop’ (NME)
Band Website: kimtrial.moonfruit.com
Press Release / Biog for debut album The Cage Was Unlocked All Along
Zoey van der Kamp was born into a strict Amish community in rural Pennsylvania in 1969 and never saw an automobile until the age of 12. She ran away to New York at the age of 15, changed her name to Zoey van Goey and quickly became immersed in Manhattan’s burgeoning street-art movement before relocating to Berlin and finding considerable success with her street murals and installation-based work. She became a constant, if peripheral, fixture of Berlin’s cultural elite in the late 80’s, embarking on an affair with (and subsequently breaking the the heart of) German film director Wim Wenders (you can spot one of her murals in ’Wings of Desire’). After the Wall came down at the end of the decade, her movements become less clear, many saying she moved into East Berlin before fading enigmatically from public view…
Which brings us (albeit elaborately) to Zoey Van Goey the band, and, hearing about their origins and approach to making music, their choice of name becomes much more than an exercise in quirky wordplay.
Zoey Van Goey, like many others bands before them, were a product of serendipity and cosmopolitan wanderlust: hailing from Canada (Matt Brennan), Ireland (Michael John McCarthy) and England (Kim Moore), they finally coalesced around the verdant cloisters of Glasgow University in 2006. If this constitutes a weak parallel with their namesake’s intrepid sense of adventure, what resonates more are the intriguing contradictions, the subject matter and the inventive musical execution of their debut album (The Cage Was Unlocked All Along) which conjures up a wide-eyed rites of passage, meshing the everyday with the fantastical; the optimism and adventure of youth, with the anxieties and pressures of the modern world…
So with ‘The Cage Was Unlocked…’ we find bandits and buried treasure co-existing with tales of TEFL students teaching in Fukuyama; dark ruminations on the coming apocalypse alongside romantic kidnap ballads; a surreal journey that’s as melodically whimsical as it is structurally complex. With the fairytale element heightened further by Peter Diamond’s Hergé meets Henry Darger artwork, Zoey Van Goey’s debut album becomes a work of charming ambition loaded with full-blooded sing-along choruses, understated keyboards, close harmonies and irresistible melodies – all underpinned by various musical ephemera including vintage Super Mario sound effects.
The album was produced by Chemikal Underground’s Paul Savage (The Delgados, The Phantom Band), and follows a brace of singles that were released in 2007 (Foxtrot Vandals) and 2008 (Sweethearts in Disguise). Following the album’s completion, the band adopted their namesake’s fondness for proactive independence and self-released ‘The Cage Was Unlocked All Along’ in May of this year, garnering excellent reviews in the process.
With Chemikal Underground now on board to give the album the international platform it so rightfully deserves, Zoey Van Goey are now set to bring their uniquely engaging brand of indie-pop to the masses, starting with some UK dates in September alongside Strike The Colours.
In addition to gigging and recording, the band have also contributed to extra-curricular projects including a musical/literary collaboration with Falkirk art-rockers Y’all Is Fantasy Island and novelist Alan Bissett called the ‘Super Puny Humans’, as well as composing and performing music (in collaboration with David Paul Jones) for the National Theatre of Scotland’s stage adaptation of the Takeshi Kitano film ‘Dolls.’
Additional Facts:
• Kim once trekked her way through a jungle in Ghana with a machete.
• Matt had part of his lung surgically removed after a tree fell on him during an ice storm in Montreal.
• Michael John was a trivia prodigy and regularly appeared on television quiz shows in Ireland throughout his childhood.
