Saturday, March 17   8:30 p.m.
Soho Lounge   (217 E 6th St)

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  Oppenheimer - Breakfast In NYC
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Oppenheimer

On August 26th 2006 at 10.13pm the Police were called to a pool party in Hammonton, NJ. They arrived to shut down an annual event held by local indie kids, but that didn't happen. It was the last night of Oppenheimer's month long tour, the Irish duo had travelled over five thousand miles since touching down in New York on the first of the month.

For the pair, the tour seemed like a rolling movie experience, and the sequence unfolding as they played out their set was even more like a scene from a teen-movie than anything they had experienced all summer.

The sun had not long gone down, people were pumping beer into red plastic cups, kids were splashing in the water, and the two police officers, strangely enough, were dancing and applauding. If not before, it was right about then that Oppenheimer realized they could not be further away from their hometown of Belfast.

Rewind just a few weeks to the start of the tour, Shaun is introducing Oppenheimer’s pop music to New York City for the first time. With the skyscrapers of Manhattan in front, and the sun-soaked skyline of Brooklyn behind, Oppenheimer played their set, both in awe of their surroundings and in wonder of exactly how they had ended up there.

It all started eighteen months earlier, three thousand miles east, in a small room in a Belfast house. Toying with ideas and pushing all the buttons on their keyboards led the pair to fall on a sound that the BBC called “All poetic and blip-tastic‚” After looping, cutting and recording enough tracks, they soon started playing in local clubs. Encouraged, they started sending cds to their favorite labels, Bar/None being the first.

In the six months that it took an intern in the Hoboken office of Bar/None records to dig their cd from a pile, Oppenheimer had continued writing and recording two minute slices of pop, and were making friends at home. They played shows with acts like The Chalets, Architecture In Helsinki and The Bravery and were proclaimed as “immensely watchable pop-peddlers‚” by the Belfast Telegraph.

By the start of 2006 Oppenheimer had completed a session with guest vocalist Tim Wheeler of Ash, and put the final synthesizer bleeps on their debut album.

A limited edition, hand printed 7” was released by Small Town America in the UK in April, and after returning home from SXSW the duo jumped in a van and toured the UK, with the debut single selling out quickly.

Bar/None released the record on June 6th, followed by releases in Australia and Japan.

Give or take hundreds of shows, lots of nice words, and a continued enthusiasm and joy, that’s pretty much how Oppenheimer ended up in NYC that day, playing out their songs to a few thousand new friends.

They liked it so much that they've returned to the U.S. in September for five weeks of shows. They begin a tour with one of their favorite bands, and Bar/None labelmates, Mosquitos, before playing a few headline east coast dates, and performing at CMJ.

If you make it to see them, they hope you say hello, you could talk about the things they sing about, like movies, authors, traveling, cities at night, about the strange moments that make you who you are, but mostly about pop music.

Oppenheimer are;
Rocky O‚Reilly
Shaun Robinson


“Brimming with M83-like synth squalls and a squeaky clean pop sheen, Oppenheimer’s serlf-titled debut kicks with motoric insisitence.”” MAGNET

"Their warm electro pop make Oppenheimer stand apart in a city dominated by dreary guitar bands" - HOTPRESS

"A sumptuous synth-pop experience" ROCK SOUND

"4/5 Irresistibly beautiful melodies from the Belfast Duo." THE SUN

“Belfast-based duo Rocky O'Reilly and Shaun Robinson is set to restore the three-minute pop song to its rightful throne. "Saturday Looks Bad To Me" is destined to be the kind of tune that finds its way onto every summer mix-tape you'll ever make, thanks to its intoxicating mix of indie-rock guitar, Moog synths, and Beach Boys-meets-Kraftwerk vocals.” AMPLIFIER MAGAZINE

“This is pop music at its most sublime, the soundtrack to a neon fantasy world where everything is shiny, it's gorgeous, gorgeous music that has universal appeal. If you don't like this then I would suggest you go looking for your soul, my friend.” MUSIC OMH

“Oppenheimer were arguably the standout at the AU birthday bash last month. With songs so lovely and perfectly formed, you could almost see their colours steaming out of the speakers onstage: party ribbons and strings of tiny Christmas lights and confetti and fireworks vapor trailed above the audience, filling the air with electric static, making the crowd shiver and goose bump with joy. The album is shot through with the same exciting quality. Slip it into your stereo and your room will be filled with sparks and crackles. Oppenheimer songs have the feel of summers gone by, of skinny-dips and moonlight gallivants and sprinkler jumps and first crushes.” ALTERNATIVE ULSTER

www.myspace.com/oppenheimer