Kinjac

Three years ago Michael O'Shea moved away, and after living in Scotland, traveling to China and most of western Europe he came back to continue his philosophy degree in WNC. Instead, he met an auspicious female painter, dropped out, bought a new drum set with the tuition refund and moved to Chapel Hill to play music. After quickly becoming immersed in the music scene there, he just as quickly decided to leave to focus on expanding his musical repertoire to production and other instruments. I...

Three years ago Michael O'Shea moved away, and after living in Scotland, traveling to China and most of western Europe he came back to continue his philosophy degree in WNC. Instead, he met an auspicious female painter, dropped out, bought a new drum set with the tuition refund and moved to Chapel Hill to play music. After quickly becoming immersed in the music scene there, he just as quickly decided to leave to focus on expanding his musical repertoire to production and other instruments. In the past two years Michael O'Shea has self-released two full-length solo albums and an EP under the moniker of Kinjac in a completely DIY fashion, doing all writing, recording and producing himself, (all while in school full-time and an honors student). He has shared the stage with notable names such as L.A.-based producer/musician Thavius Beck and hip-hop artist K-the-I???. This summer he spent his time doing some tracking for an Umphrey's McGee side project called Ali Baba's Tahini, producing an album for WNC-based Demi, and touring most of the eastern seaboard and midwest playing drum set for an Asheville-based afrobeat band called Afromotive. Blending minimalistic melodies with a din of digitized percussion, Kinjac’s music is a unique synthesis of the digital and organic that manages to fall outside the bounds of most categorizations. Kinjac’s live show is a unique one-man-band phenomenon befitting his music. The multi-instrumentalist switches between singing and playing bass (with an often radically altered sound) and playing drum set, all on-top of the densely layered sonic backdrop of his prerecorded productions.