Singular Artists Presents: Robocobra Quartet

Robocobra Quartet announce headline show at The Grand Social, Dublin

23rd September 2023

Tickets €18.00 on sale Friday at 11am from www.singularartists.ie 

“Living Isn’t Easy is a storied triumph” – MOJO

“perfectly strange” – London Evening Standard

“I like, I like, I like, I think they’re really exciting” - Jamz Supernova

“free floating musical explorers” - Hannah Peel

“I genuinely don’t think there is another band like ‘em, anywhere in these islands” - Tom Robinson

“I love this band” - Gemma Bradley

“their motto…is no guitars allowed, which I love” - Stuart Maconie

“Incantatory” - The Guardian

“Fugazi meets Mingus" - Drowned in Sound

"A cunning marriage of jazz, spoken word and punk" - The Quietus

"Exploratory pioneers" - BBC Radio 3 Late Junction

Singular Artists proudly present Robocobra Quartet for their highly anticipated headline show at The Grand Social, Saturday 23rd September.

The band's hometown of Belfast is also central to the band and their sound. The city has seen glimpses of the spotlight in the past year, with the local art group Array Collective winning the Turner Prize and Kenneth Branagh Oscar-nominated film Belfast (2021) in the headlines. The city's historically low rent (due to its assumed danger by outsiders) has allowed artists like Robocobra Quartet to flourish and hone their craft for years without worrying about broad appeal or commercial interest, instead designing a singular style that is unique and borne of interests across punk rock, jazz, avant-garde and modern pop.

The unique placement of Northern Ireland as a kind of quasi-European post-brexit loophole means that Irish and British pop culture both influence the band's work, with various band members growing up with Irish, British and European backgrounds.

Their musical freedom and proclivity for improvisation often results in Robocobra Quartet being spoken about in the same breath as jazz and experimental music but their background is in punk rock and indie rock just as much as the avant-garde. They simply deal with what they have at their disposal - a collective of six members of wildly different musical backgrounds swapping in and out to make a touring quartet, which has taken them across Europe to Montreux Jazz Festival, Latitude Festival, and as far as Inversia Festival in the polar north of Russia. All while receiving acclaim from the likes of The Quietus, The Line Of Best Fit, Prog, and BBC Radio 6, seeing comparisons to the likes of Fugazi, BadBadNotGood, Tortoise, Black Midi, Black Country, New Road, and Squid.

Improvisation and experimentation is at the core of Robocobra Quartet's DNA, whether it be in the fluidity of their line-up or in their unique records which flirt with choral groups and string sections - almost intentionally at odds with their ostensible roots as a post-punk band.