Brian’s music career started at the age of 16 when he and Damien Rice started playing music together in school. This led to them forming the indie band Juniper and then later Bell X1, with whom Brian recorded four records and toured the world extensively between 1996 and 2008.

During this period Brian also founded The Cake Sale – a band featuring an eclectic collective of artists such as Paul Noonan (Bell X1), Lisa Hannigan, Gary Lighbody (Snowpatrol), Nina Persson (The Cardigans), Glen Hansard and Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) to raise funds for the charity Oxfam. The record was a multi-platinum hit in Ireland, was released in Europe and America to huge critical acclaim and to this day still generates royalties for the charity.

Towards the end of his time in Bell X1 Brian had become drawn to film scoring work and had started a very rewarding collaboration with visual artist the late Paddy Jolley on a number of his films. It was the taste of this more spacious yet intimate way of creating music that in part led to him departing Bell X1 to pursue a career as a film composer.

Shortly after leaving the band Brian made the decision to move his life and studio to Berlin. A year after his arrival, Brian converted a 3,500 sq ft factory in the city’s Kreuzberg district to a modular studio complex with nine rooms. The studio rapidly became home to a thriving Berlin film music scene and it was here that he collaborated with fellow studio residents Dustin O’Halloran, Hildur Guõnadóttir, Rutger Hoedemaekers and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson on numerous Film and TV scores. During this period he also co -wrote a body of original work to be performed on two pianos with French pianist Fabien Leseure.

Brian maintained strong ties with the Irish music scene and in 2016, alongside many well-known figures in Irish contemporary music, was a central collaborator on Starboard Home, a project which culminated with two live shows at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and the release of a critically acclaimed studio album.

In 2017, Brian moved back to Ireland with his family and two years later set up home in rural county Wicklow at the foot of Carrick Mountain. Inspired by the wooded landscape around him, he designed and built Treehouse Studios, a beautiful log cabin set in the native Irish forest that surrounds his home. It was here that Brian recorded his debut solo album Imbrium which was released in the Spring of 2021 while most of the world was still in lockdown. The Sunday Times describes the record as “nine unadorned piano instrumentals capture the stillness of life suspended, each piece as delicate and moving as it is restrained. The result is a quietly meditative work perfectly in tune with our present lives”, while The Irish Times says “Gorgeous gems to enthral and delight. Imbrium is a soothing and riveting new chapter“.

Most recently, Brian has started writing songs again with long-time friend and old band mate Paul Noonan under the name Pilgrims. Their debut album Wintering, released in January 2026 was described by the Irish Times as ‘Nine songs that are as close to aural trembling as anything you’ve heard - An early contender for Irish Album of the Year’.

Brian is also currently touring a production of Beckett Poems, directed by long-time collaborator Alan Gilsenan and performing opposite iconic actors Stephen Rea and Ruth Negga. The production orchestrates a kind of dance between the three players, with improvised music and fixed words coming together in a rhythmic meditation on life, loss and love.

Outside of making music Brian is a vocal advocate for artists rights and is a director of RAAP (Recorded Artists Actors Performers). He has a deep curiosity with mindfulness and Transpersonal Psychology and is a certified Holotropic Breathwork Facilitator, a therapeutic practise using breath and music to achieve altered states of consciousness enabling psychological and spiritual transformation.