One true Pairing ( ex Wild Beasts)

MCD proudly presents

One True Pairing

Friday November 8 th 2019

The Grand Social

Tickets from €14.50 incl booking fee on sale now.

One true Pairing announces debut Dublin show at The Grand Social. 

I wanted to write about the real world, I didn't want it to be an artistic, poised, tasteful record's, says Tom

Fleming of his first solo album, released under the name One True Pairing's, I wanted this to be a rock album, a

protest vote against the field of good taste. One True Pairing is a name taken from internet fan fiction, where

you write the perfect relationship you always wished existed. The idea of Prince Charming and Helpless Princess

living happily after is no fun at all.” The former Wild Beasts songwriter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist is

back with a self-titled debut that’s shaped by class frustration and self-despair. In its 11 songs of discordant

guitar and aggressive synth Fleming channels his discontent with Britain in 2019 and a “feeling of directionless

rage and cheatedness which hasn't gone away.

His musical touchstones were Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Tom Petty and Def Leppard's- big rock songs,

but as it went on it started to be Depeche Mode and noisier stuff, along with Swans and Bonnie Prince Billy and

the kids making hip hop, using a kick drum, a high hat and that's s it - it's production, it'ss electronic music, but it's

as small as you can make it.” The record was fleshed out down in the Sussex studio of Ben Hillier, who

contributed drums and modular synth to the album. & It want a roll call of guests, I wanted it to be & no I

can do this's, for the synths to be cutting, digital, nasty. I really didn't want to make a singer-songwriter record -

there's nothing less interesting than a bald guy with a hat on and an acoustic guitar. This is my sub-Reddit for

all the romance and hope and rage and failure and hard-won victory I've seen and continue to see.”

This seething blend of difficult emotions is explored in One True Pairing’s palette of taut and clipped guitar

that flickers between New Wave and even at times 80s MOR titans Dire Straits, looming synths, trickling

melodies. Above it all Fleming’s voice, ranging from haunting despair to croon like a Yorkshire Scott Walker, is

at its best of his career, giving life to “the angry northern Springsteen record that I'd always wanted to make.”

He says that “I want to be obvious in what I'm saying - it's neo-heartland rock' .