A cover of Bob Dylan's best-known unknown song, released in time for his 80th birthday. I'm on vocals, with Alan Maguire handling everything else.

Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan cover)

I had the honour of contributing music to my good friend Daniel Wade's radio play, The Outer Darkness, in 2015. The play is a poetic imagining of the circumstances behind the painting of Da Vinci's Last Supper.

Rather than slavishly following the conventions of Renaissance music, I decided to draw on monastic chanting and minor-key Baroque music to evoke the texture of Daniel's language. This piece was broadcast at the beginning of the play.

The Outer Darkness - Intro Music

I had the honour of contributing music to my good friend Daniel Wade's radio play, The Outer Darkness, in 2015. The play is a poetic imagining of the circumstances behind the painting of Da Vinci's Last Supper.

There are a lot of religious themes in the story, so the addition of church organ seemed like a good fit for this track. (For any music nerds out there, the melody ends on a Picardy third, which happily enough was invented in the Renaissance era.) This piece was broadcast at the end of the play.

The Outer Darkness - Closing Music

Live at Tivoli Backstage is Mekkan Ju's debut album. The gig took place in Dublin's Studio 19 (formerly Tivoli Backstage) as part of the Liberties Festival. Six songs were cherry-picked from a 2+ hour set to make up an album that moves from blues rock through funk and soukous rhythms to Afrobeat. 

Mekkan Ju is a five-piece band centred on the songs of Justin McCann. The band is currently developing a signature sound based on heavily rhythmic grooves drawn from all around the world, topped off by instantly memorable melodies and complex vocal harmonies.

Live At Tivoli Backstage

Fire In The Sky (Mekkan Ju)

Black Dog (Mekkan Ju)

Last Words (Mekkan Ju)

Hear The Music Play (Mekkan Ju)

Recipe Blues (Mekkan Ju)

Everyman Blues (Mekkan Ju)

The story of the eternal struggle with the Mound, narrated over a breakbeat, synth, driving piano, slide guitar, heavy bass and lots of percussion.

Over The Mound (Mekkan Ju)

I'm a Dublin-based songwriter, musician, bandleader and composer. I've written solo piano stuff, classical stuff, rock stuff, electronic stuff, Afrobeat stuff, radio stuff and film stuff. 

My band Mekkan Ju has just released its debut album, Live at Tivoli Backstage, a document of a major gig we did at last year's Liberties Festival.  
You can listen to the full album here, or download it on Bandcamp: https://mekkanju.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-tivoli-backstage

The event was also turned into a concert movie which you can find on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yThz46wzWls&list=PLfYY0fU2qq7KhD1wGm8SUTXtMyQ2PgA6y&t=1506s&index=7

We're hoping to have an EP's worth of studio material out by the end of the year. Like our Facebook page for updates (see below).

Justin McCann

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