TOUCAN is the musical alter ego of Irish singer/songwriter CONOR CLANCY. Toucan began as a proper band – in the creation of which Conor was assisted by noted Irish arranger Martin Atkinson. That band debuted in 2018 with a bright, breezy, brassy ‘We Fell For Miles’ which quickly hit the I-tunes Top 30, won major airplay and was a hit on Spotify. The song was followed 4 track self-titled EP on which like ‘We Fell For Miles’, the music wasn’t classic soul but it certainly was soulful – in that catchy “blue-eyed” fashion.
Earlier this year, Toucan (now just Conor out on his own?) returned with the single ‘Don’t Understand Why’, another insinuating blue-eyed soul work-out and if that sound is your canal barge floater, then you’ll pleased to know that Toucan are/is lining up a brand new EP for imminent release.
‘Don’t Understand Why’ is the lead/title track . The other tracks are ‘You At Last’ (a sparse, reflective, soulful piece), the gentle ‘If This Isn’t Love’ and the quasi folksy ‘Where You Go’. Conor says: : “I’ve been writing in a few different styles over the last few years, and I wanted this release to feel cohesive, so I chose these songs because they all give me that feeling of a slow, sunny, Sunday morning. In a lot of the TOUCAN music, there’s a feel-good factor that I think has become an important part of the sound, and these songs all have that feeling for me.” Yes, that’s an almost perfect summation of the sound of the EP – to repeat, it’s not classic soul, but soulful; infectious, timeless with a sweet feel-good factor
TOUCAN: DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY Out 17th May
