Heralding from Bristol and London – guitarist, and singer / songwriter, Finn O’Brien and drummer / brother Elliot O’Brien were both born in London and brought up and schooled in Bristol, before subsequently relocating back to London - the Jacques formed in early 2014 and had already appeared live at the Dot to Dot Festival and GuilFest when a performance at the Hyde Park Festival - with The Libertines - changed their trajectory. Correspondingly, after briefly signing to Libertines’ drummer Gary Powell’s label 25 Hour Convenience Store, the band released their debut four-track Pretty DJ EP in November that year. But their personal journey is a unique tale of triumph over adversity and, like the best kind of drama – and theirs is quite definitely a drama - one of gain through loss. The Jacques have been variously described as gritty, distorted, lush, dreamy, discordant, infectious, inventive, evocative, romantic and ludicrous, and everything from the “absurd” and “straight up grotesque” to the “tongue in cheek”. In 2020, The Jacques (now with the backing of Modern Sky) unleashed the fruits of their labours on the world in the form of their debut album.The Four Five Three is a record of remarkable songs hewn from a range of tragically ragged, sweet and tender adolescent experiences you can’t quite believe have been crammed into such a slight number of collective years. But there lies the rub: The Jacques may have unremarkable musical origins emanating out of the fields and towns of rural England, best visualized in that seminal British comedy This Country, with all the boredoms and eccentricities associated with the social isolation of such communities. But their personal journey is a unique tale of triumph over adversity and, like the best kind of drama – and theirs is quite definitely a drama - one of gain through loss.
