This year’s POP Montreal Program states that, “Michael O’Connell
specializes in playing any instrument that makes a noise, and playing
all of them masterfully. He uses this considerable skill to shape the
artful melodies that accompany his evocative lyrics. This soft, tender
music will let him play your heartstrings too.”
After a few years away from a busy touring schedule with his former
band Black Cabbage, the dynamic songwriter created Culture Reject to
house his latest body of work. It comes from an interesting path of
influences: growing up on a diet of Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Led
Zeppelin and Van Morrison records would provide anyone with a healthy
place from which to engage musically in the world… For O’Connell, it
created a hunger to seek music beyond the omnipresent classic rock
format of Southern Ontario. While spending time on exchange in Africa
and more recently hauling his family through rural Cuba, he found
himself regularly joining in on spontaneous neighbourhood jam sessions;
hearing his own songs accompanied with instruments and infused with
rhythms he had yet to consider. These influences and experiences
largely form the source of Culture Reject’s infectious, soulful
melodies, syncopated guitars and easy grooves.
Aside from touring, O’Connell spends time engineering and producing
tracks in the recording studio of Sketch: the working arts for
street-involved and homeless youth. Creating beats and opportunities
for a …
This year’s POP Montreal Program states that, “Michael O’Connell
specializes in playing any instrument that makes a noise, and playing
all of them masterfully. He uses this considerable skill to shape the
artful melodies that accompany his evocative lyrics. This soft, tender
music will let him play your heartstrings too.”
After a few years away from a busy touring schedule with his former
band Black Cabbage, the dynamic songwriter created Culture Reject to
house his latest body of work. It comes from an interesting path of
influences: growing up on a diet of Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Led
Zeppelin and Van Morrison records would provide anyone with a healthy
place from which to engage musically in the world… For O’Connell, it
created a hunger to seek music beyond the omnipresent classic rock
format of Southern Ontario. While spending time on exchange in Africa
and more recently hauling his family through rural Cuba, he found
himself regularly joining in on spontaneous neighbourhood jam sessions;
hearing his own songs accompanied with instruments and infused with
rhythms he had yet to consider. These influences and experiences
largely form the source of Culture Reject’s infectious, soulful
melodies, syncopated guitars and easy grooves.
Aside from touring, O’Connell spends time engineering and producing
tracks in the recording studio of Sketch: the working arts for
street-involved and homeless youth. Creating beats and opportunities
for at-risk youth in Toronto is a transformative process for both the
youth and himself. In fact, the Sketch environment proves itself a
massive influence on his life and in many ways the thematic basis to
many of the songs on his upcoming self-titled release.
Inspired by love and mourning, the trials of good people feeling
isolated and life in city chaos, Culture Reject grew from myriad
Toronto home recording sessions with O’Connell at the console
accompanied by several guitars, a loop pedal, a glockenspiel, and
whatever else produced a sound when it was struck. Guests include Jim
Guthrie (drums, vocals), Karri North (background vocals), percussion
virtuoso Dave Clark and a horn section consisting of Michael Barclay,
Bradley Fauteux, and Venezuelan/Canadian saxophone star, Bernardo
Padron. Most of the songs were then sent off for further mixing at
London, Ontario ’s House Of Miracles by the sure ears of Andy Magoffin
(Constantines, Great Lake Swimmers).
On stage, as witnessed at this year’s CMJ Music Marathon in New York
City, Culture Reject recreates the songs with an impressive and unique
use of a loop pedal and an intricate finger picking style that creates
a bed of syncopation and harmony under O’Connell’s powerfully dynamic
vocal range. He is sometimes backed up by vocalist Karri North or a
thick wall of saxophone and trumpets.
