Hope
Album
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2025 • 11 songs, 49 mins
ALBUM TRACKSOpen Our Hearts • 5:58
Mother • 4:49
Hope • 4:03
What Can We Do • 3:27
Two • 5:23
What You See Is What You Get • 5:37
Bully Boy • 4:23
We Got To Rise • 3:57
Try My Best • 4:29
Life’s Too Short • 3:44
I'm A Hippy And Proud To Be • 4:00
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASEMARK KELLY & THE PEACEFUL WARRIORS
Origin: CH – Vevey
Title: Hope
Format: Album
Label: Hairy People
Release date: 06.06.2025
After releasing several solo albums, Mark Kelly missed being part of a group, the way other people push you and your music to be better. He now returns accompanied by a full band, The Peaceful Warriors, on an album that is, at its core, about growth, forgiveness and how we can change for the better. Questions and lessons to change through 11 wonderfully warm, uplifting and impeccable songs that explore genres ranging from folk to Afro-pop and country music.
The Peaceful Warriors formed back in November 2020 at the Casino de Saxon (Switzerland) during a founding residency. The different musicians, however, had worked with Mark over the years, strong friendships serving as a basis for the collaboration. After a few lineup changes, the band is now composed of Mark Kelly (acoustic + electric + bass guitar, vocals, gongs, percussion, ukulele, banjo), Tony Leggett (trombone, bugle, percussions, harp, backing vocals, flute and tin whistle), Marine Le Mouël (double bass and backing vocals), Robins Azonnoudo (udu, drums, congas and backing vocals), Ernest Ikwanga (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Betty Patural (Guitar).
Musically, the album covers many grounds, ranging from folk to afro-pop, funk, pop as well as Irish and country songs. Together with The Peaceful Warriors, they managed to weave all those different approaches into a sound that is both coherent and singular. And if listening to each other’s inputs and influences shaped the sonic identity of the album, the approach is also at the core of the themes that are explored throughout the lyrics.
On the 11 songs of the record, Mark explores dealing with what life peacefully throws at you, striving to surround yourself with love, support and people who don’t shy away from giving you the wake-up calls and hard truths you sometimes need to hear. It’s a record about hope and the will to change yourself, and by extension, the world. That double layering of growth is interwoven into every single line of the record: what can be done to make things better for everyone, not just oneself (‘What Can We Do’), the duty to help people back up when they are down, regardless of how well we know them, if at all (‘We Got To Rise’), and the sometimes self-destroying power of anger (on the mantra-like ‘Life’s Too Short’). As Mark said through his first solo album back in 2012, ‘Nothing’s Perfect’: but that doesn’t mean one can’t work towards being better, constantly. More kind, more patient, more loving, more sharing, more aware, and more truthful, to others and oneself.
The album, produced by the band itself, was recorded by Benoit Gerard at Ritmo Studio in Leysin, Switzerland. The tracks were then sent to Romain Equey (La Digue 18) for the mix, before landing on the desk of Grégoire Du.
IRASCIBLE MUSICPlace du Nord 7, 1005 Lausanne
Geroldstrasse 33, 8005 Zürich
www.irascible.ch
Kontakt D-CH:
Fabienne Schmuki, fabienne@irascible.ch, 044 271 32 83
Contact F-CH / I-CH:
Gilles Kaeser, gilles@irascible.ch, 0041 78 976 00 25