An idiosyncratic and richly lyrical singer-songwriter, Junior Brother has enjoyed a landmark few years. Since being chosen as one of RTÉ's Rising Irish Stars of 2018, the Kerry native has toured with The Proclaimers, Lankum, Glen Hansard and The Murder Capital. His debut album, Pull The Right Rope, was released back in 2019 to critical acclaim – earning a Choice Music Prize nomination for Album of the Year, as well as two nominations for the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards, for Best Folk Album and Best Emerging Folk Act.

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"As a human, I'm sure Van Morrison is no more special than you or me. The music of Van Morrison however is the very definition of transcendental, but not in a naff, New Age way – rather, in a totally grounded, earthy and endlessly curious type of way. His is a music of the sublime, with one figure cast to the front, tasked to convey awe and insignificance next to nature.

"Morrison is a prime example of the artist pushing limits of mood, length, patience and profound inner-questioning. Across the lengthy, decades-spanning career Van the Man has travelled through, his capacity for stretching these limits has been varied. However, the many musical, spiritual and atmospheric Everests scaled and surpassed by Morrison are numbered so plentifully, the searching young Irish artist can see the clearing and cut their own way to their own potential peaks, Morrison's fire strong in their gut.

"I heard ‘Dweller on the Threshold’ many years ago when I found a scratched CD of The Best of Van Morrison in my father's car as a young teen. This was before I got properly into him, and among the more familiar and less interesting tracks on the collection, this one stood out. The glossy production deterred me at first, but very soon after I was swept into the song's propulsive rhythm and intrigued by Van's searching poetry. The dweller on the threshold is a figure standing between artifice and truth, who assures us he will leave behind the former but never fully enters into the latter. For my cover, I changed the time signature to more suit my stranger sensibilities, but I have hopefully kept the yearning spirit of the original alive within my version."

Read more in the upcoming Van Morrison Special Issue of Hot Press, and watch Junior Brother's performance below:

Take a look at the spectacular line-up for the next week of 'Rave On, Van Morrison' below:

Tue Aug 18 Damien Dempsey Tupelo Honey (7pm); Carrie Baxter Out In The Cold Again (8pm)
Wed Aug 19 Camille O'Sullivan Avalon Of The Heart (7pm); Joshua Burnside You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River (8pm)
Thu Aug 20 Gemma Hayes Comfort You (7pm); Little Hours Streets Of Arklow (8pm)
Fri Aug 21 Gemma Bradley Sometimes We Cry (7pm); Jess Kav Vanlose Stairway (8pm)
Sat Aug 22 Mick Flannery Linden Arden Stole the Highlights (7pm); The Henry Girls These Are The Days (8pm)
Sun Aug 23 Martin Hayes Moondance (7pm); Cara Dillon Memory Lane (8pm)

Each 'Rave On, Van Morrison' performance premieres every night on the Hot Press YouTube channel. To make sure you don't miss out on any of our upcoming videos, subscribe to our YouTube here!

Hot Press is also publishing a Van Morrison Special Issue, to coincide with ‘Rave On, Van Morrison’, featuring written contributions from the legendary likes of Sinéad O'Connor, Gary Lightbody, Tim Wheeler, Una Healy and David Keenan – who reflect on Van's music and influence. The issue will also look back at five decades of landmark Hot Press interviews with Van, in which he discusses everything from Ray Charles and his other musical heroes, to the inspiration behind the seminal Astral Weeks. Plus, you can expect exclusive photos from the archives, ten ways Van has changed the world, and much more. This historic publication is set to be a must-have for Van Morrison fans all over the world, and is available to pre-order now.