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Talkhouse

Michael Cormier-O&#8217;Leary is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, the drummer for Friendship, and the co-founder of the prolific indie label Dear Life Records. His latest record, Anything Can Be Left Behind, is out May 5, 2023.
(Photo Credit: Abi Reimold)

Michael Cormier-O’Leary

Music

Michael Cormier-O’Leary and Karl Blau Talk Improvisation, Lyrical Character Building, and Anything Can Be Left Behind

The 2016 Talkies: Talkhouse Music Contributors’ Top Albums of the Year

Best known for his sixteen years as songwriter-performer-producer with Tracey Thorn in multi-million-selling alt-pop UK duo Everything But the Girl (1984-2000), London-born Ben Watt is also a prize-nominated non-fiction writer, record label boss and DJ. In 2014, he returned to his earliest folk-jazz roots as a solo singer-songwriter with the award-winning album, Hendra, his first for thirty-one years. The follow-up Fever Dream was released in April 2016. He has also written two memoirs; the first, Patient (1996), was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, the most recent, Romany and Tom (2014), was long-listed for the UK’s premier non-fiction award, the Samuel Johnson Prize.
(Photo credit: Tom Sheehan)

Ben Watt

Ben Watt Explains How He Picked the Openers for His Upcoming Tour

Karl Blau