Robocobra Quartet release their 100-song album “Hundred Pieces“
+ announce IRE tour
+ announce physical Dinked edition “Ten Easy Pieces“
Robocobra Quartet by Niamh Barry
Selected press for Robocobra Quartet:
“Fugazi meets Mingus” – Drowned in Sound
“a storied triumph” – MOJO
“perfectly strange” – The London Standard
“I like, I like, I like, I think they’re really exciting” – Jamz Supernova
“free floating musical explorers” – Hannah Peel
“I genuinely don’t think there is another band like ’em” – Tom Robinson
“I love this band” – Gemma Bradley
“Incantatory” – The Guardian
“A signature sound of jazz-motivated, punk-informed spoken word” – Loud & Quiet
“A cunning marriage of jazz, spoken word and punk” – The Quietus
“Exploratory pioneers” – BBC Radio 3 Late Junction
Today, Irish experimental collective Robocobra Quartet release Hundred Pieces, a new album made up of 100 songs, following the singles “Haha” and “Nothing”. Alongside the release, the band announce a physical Dinked edition titled Ten Easy Pieces, a ten-track selection from the century, as well as two Irish shows in March 2027.
Listen to “Hudred Pieces” HERE
With a revolving cast of collaborators who tag in and out as required, Robocobra Quartet have been growing a cult following since the release of their debut album Music For All Occasions in 2016. Formed by drummer and vocalist Chris W Ryan, who is fast becoming a producer in demand, having recently worked on records by the likes of Chalk, Just Mustard, and TTSSFU, the band includes members with no musical training alongside members with music conservatoire pedigree. Their touring has brought them from Montreux Jazz Festival to living rooms, pub basements, a number of boats and as far as the Arctic Circle, while receiving acclaim from The Quietus, MOJO, The Guardian, The London Standard, Loud & Quiet, The Line Of Best Fit, Prog, and BBC Radio 6.
They say good ideas often start with a joke: the idea of a 100-track album was initially an off-hand remark, but very soon the band started writing specifically for “the hundred”, as they affectionately called it. Inspired by the durational art of Marina Abramović, and specifically her memoir Walk Through Walls, Robocobra Quartet set about creating a one-hundred-track album as a composition in itself.
Getting it out into the world was its own challenge. “It has been a serious journey to get this over the line,” says Ryan. “We’ve even had pushback from places like Spotify etc. because there are some things that their system wasn’t able to deal with. It feels fun to be experimenting not only musically but also with delivery and release of music. I’m excited to have this record exist as an artefact of our cheeky and playful ambition.”
During the writing process, saxophonist Thibault Barillon began growing petri dishes of fungus at home with a view to creating the artwork for the album. This soon became an improvised process in tandem with the music-making, furthering the band’s obsession with the idea of chance. Much like the organisms growing in the petri dishes, some of the songs grew into very complex studio productions laboured over for months, such as “Haha” and “Nothing”, whereas other songs, such as “Gilded” and “Ashes Again”, were simply moments captured during the writing process, their lives beginning and ending within just a few minutes.
Created with absolutely zero use of AI, Hundred Pieces is also an ode to the idea that creating work is a form of joy, and that humans can take on gigantic tasks too and enjoy the process while they’re at it.
Across the tracklisting, the band morphs through genres, travelling from abrasive saxophone blasts to pensive post-hardcore tinged miniatures, then slowly disintegrating into dub mixes and austere ambience. Clocking in at 5 hours, Hundred Pieces flies in the face of the attention economy. For over a decade Robocobra Quartet have been breaking rules and asking questions: Will you actively listen through it all from start to finish? Will you skip to track titles that pique your interest? Will you jump to the final, hundredth song to see how it ends? Will you pause after a while and come back to it like a book you love? All answers welcome.
For those who would rather start with ten, Ten Easy Pieces is the band’s “classic album” version of the project, a physical Dinked edition mastered for vinyl by Matt Colton at Metropolis. Our on Friday 5th of March 2027, the tracklisting was decided by a vote among the band.
Ten Easy Pieces tracklisting:
1 Gilded
2 Haha
3 Nothing
4 Everything Broken
5 Walk Through Walls
6 Sing Heavenly Muse
7 Bell Tower
8 Gabriel
9 Needles
10 I Hear
Pre-order the Dinked edition HERE
“It was a fun challenge to try to make a ‘classic album’ track-listing for the vinyl release which nods to the 100 but can live as something that stands alone in a record shop for someone with no context of our lofty project,” says Ryan. “We did a vote amongst the band and some of us were surprised by each other’s picks. It felt like solving a puzzle. Matt Colton at Metropolis mastered the record for vinyl so it sounds great for the nerds.”
Ten Easy Pieces artwork | Download Hi-Res HERE
Robocobra Quartet live:
London – 19/11 – ICA (London Jazz Festival)
Dingle, IE – 28-29/11 – Other Voices
Dublin, IE – 12/03/2027 – Bello Bar – [TICKETS]
Belfast, NI – 13/03/2027 – The MAC – [TICKETS]
At the time of writing, Robocobra Quartet includes:
Chris W Ryan (Drums, Vocals)
Finn McCarthy (Bass)
Ryan Burrowes (Samplers, Keys)
Peter Howard (Sax, Keys)
Tom Tabori (Sax, Samplers)
Thibault Barillon (Sax, Artwork)
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