Photo credit: Nicholas O’Donnell
Listen Now To – Sinead O Brien – Roman Ruins
Irish Star Sinead O’Brien Unveils Her Brand New Single ‘Roman Ruins’ and Announced Debut EP This Summer.
Irish poet and performer Sinead O’Brien today shared her new track ‘Roman Ruins’ and announced her debut EP Drowning In Blessings for release this summer on Chess Club Records. Produced by Dan Carey (Speedy Wundergroud, Fontaines DC, Kate Tempest) the EP is O’Brien’s first fuller body of work following a string of rapturously received singles including ‘Taking On Time’, ‘A Thing You Call Joy’ and recent release ‘Fall With Me’. Further details about Drowning In Blessings will be revealed soon.
Originally from Limerick (a city with ‘a kind of grey industrial place with a certain poetry to it’), O’Brien’s work captures the everyday and the inbetween in a way that transcends any genre label. Writing from her own observations, O’Brien’s influences can be found in the realism of Mark E. Smith of The Fall, Patti Smith and The Slits, and the works of literary icons such Frank O’Hara, W.B. Yeats, Joan Didion and Albert Camus. Releases to date have drawn admiration from outlets and radio stations as diverse as The FADER, The Guardian, Loud And Quiet, The Quietus, BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6 Music, and more.
Speaking about ‘Roman Ruins’, O’Brien says, “‘Become fixated on the change…Change must show its face on mine. I am here calling it, needing it. I will not wait any more’. This was written in a notebook a few days before ‘Roman Ruins’.” She continues “Written while living in the mansion with fifty people in Hampstead; a sudden realisation occurred. It allowed me to see in the brutal light of day. The illusion was collapsed. Exploded. Statues, monuments, clay and ancient structures emerged… A hidden city. The city wants to stay hidden. This is the blind spot.”
O’Brien concludes: “All four of my bedroom walls faced a different room or hallway. It was set up like a boxing ring. I could hear multiple narratives, coming from all directions even in my sleep. There were ‘episodes’ reeling in my mind through the night and into morning. The relentless sounds, conversations. Images from the lyrics are also heard in the musical arrangement. ‘Standing still will kill you’; This shuffling drum, checking in and out like the rug pulling from underneath the feet. Unsettling the foundations. Revealing the ground under. The drum has this magnetic raw power over the other elements – almost tidal. I love this bossiness.”
A multifaceted artist, O’Brien’s writing has also been published by the esteemed London Magazine whose alumni include T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath and William Burroughs. Her unique fusion of spoken lyrics and art rock has piqued the attention of luminaries of both genres, seeing her perform with John Cooper Clarke and The Brian Jonestown Massacre at sold out theatres across the U.K. Playing live with her band and collaborators; Julian Hanson (guitar) and Oscar Robertson (drums), Sinead O’Brien’s transfixing performances are placing her at the forefront of a resurgent post-punk wave that is taking the capital and beyond.
See Sinead O’Brien live in 2020:
2 Jul | VIDA Festival, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Barcelona
10 Jul | Heaven, London (Warmduscher support)
24 – 25 Jul | MIDI Festival, Hyeres, France
5 – 16 Aug | Winterthurer Musikfestwoochen, Winterthur, Switzerland
20 – 23 Aug | Green Man Festival, Wales, UK
4- 6 Sep | Moseley Folk Festival, Birmingham, UK
15 Oct | Chats Palace, London
16 Oct | YES (Basement), Manchester
