To celebrate St Patrick’s Day, Mickey O’Brien drops the title track from his upcoming album due Friday, March 22 on Hand’Solo Records.
“My Drift” is a shout-along Irish drinking song, a working class anthem, and an ode to lost family and friends. Dealing with personal trauma through music, by turning the negative into a positive, Mickey writes a song to honour the memory of four of his best friends and his dog, whose bark can be heard at the beginning of the song. With Celtic-inspired “East Coast loops” supplied by MPC button-masher and production master Fresh Kils, the result is a rousing yet touching drinking song.
Scene from the “Groundhog Day” video
Mickey O’Brien (aka OB OreBody) was born and raised in Copper Cliff, Ontario in the shadow of the iconic Sudbury smelter. As such, his music represents the raw, unfiltered experience of the working class man in the modern world, expressed over a soundtrack of 90s era boom bap beats.
In fact, by day, Mickey O’Brien works as a hard rock miner, literally exploring the underground. But by day and night, he’s also an underground MC, simultaneously channeling a variety of influences and predecessors—Atmosphere, Eminem, Nas, and Jay-Z, to name a few—to deliver hard-hitting raps that touch on class struggle, love and loss, and the daily trials of life.
Scene from the “Groundhog Day” video
And in case you missed it, Mickey also released the first single from My Drift earlier in the week, accompanied by a fresh video directed and edited by Dan Jardine for Boom Shoal Enterprises.
The first single is “Groundhog Day”, a 21st Century critique of organized religion and the failed policies of the church. It’s an all-out verbal attack, not on spirituality, but on those who wield the power of religion to divide, control and conceal. History is doomed to repeat itself, like in the Bill Murray movie, as long as humanity as a whole doesn’t evolve together.
Scene from the “Groundhog Day” video
Sharing vocal duties is fiery anti-capitalist rapper Lee Reed (Strange Famous), with production from Fresh Kils and frantic closing cuts from Uncle Fester. The video perfectly captures the theme of the song with a tragic storyline and exciting visuals filmed on location in a beautiful church in Toronto.
You can find the Billy John-assisted “My Drift,” Lee Reed-assisted “Groundhog Day,” and “Beg Borrow Steal” on the Hand’Solo Records Bandcamp page, as well as a pre-order for both hard and digital copies of the full album.
Check out the “My Drift” single and “Groundhog Day” video below.
You can follow @OreBody on Instagram.
