The Breath is the project of Ríoghnach Connolly vocalist with Honeyfeet and guitarist Stuart McCallum (former guitarist of The Cinematic Orchestra) who return with their third album `Land of My Other` this month. The duo has shared that `Land Of My Other` is a place of memories and melodies, lyricism, and lore. A place of sunlight, faerie-tales, and rowan trees; of grief, incarceration, and thunder in darkness. A place where ancestral trauma and colonial injustice meet blazing pride, romantic self-rule and hands held in a circle in the sea. Where songs are sung with feeling, instruments are everywhere, and music lives deep in the bones.
`Don`t Rush It` eases us in and it`s a gentle number that appears to be about a budding romance and the narrator being prepared to take it slowly. Ríoghnach`s vocal delivery has a slight quiver as it edges along, and you cannot admire the depth and beauty of it`s heartbreaking texture. There`s a breathy feel in throughout the vocal delivery on `Little One` a kind of ode or soothing parental lament. There`s a strange percussive backing, similar to clicking maracas which shouldn’t work but oddly does.
Title track `Land of My Other` has a sort of country come folk crossover vibe and is a longing or a recognition of familial roots and their touching enduring pull. There`s initially a delightful dream line quality about `Burning Away` where piano and guitar accompany the vocal, but the number picks up pace and volume as it evolves and sways between both styles throughout its existence. A song that the singer felt was cathartic.
`Cliona’s Wave` is a eulogy to one of the nineteen mythical female deities in the Irish tradition, a healer stolen away to sit on the rocks off Glandore, West Cork (the home of Connolly’s grandparents), warning sailors of the danger while luring them to their deaths. The number has an overwhelming sadness but real tangible beauty about it. There`s a recognition of the emigrated and disinherited souls in the thoughtful and reflective `Remembering the Flood`.
`Head Down` is a bluesy number that has a haunting quality about it and refers to the advice given as to when one was arrested during the times of the trouble, predominantly on the island of Ireland. Long Kesh was a disused airfield and facilities of RAF Long Kesh and became the Long Kesh Detention Centre, where Irish paramilitary suspects were detained by the British government without trial. In `Letters from Long Kesh` the singer reflects on a place where her father was incarcerated. A moving thoughtful and personal reflection on the effects on this place.
I read that `Without You In It` is a song about absence and has a dreamlike texture and becomes fairly captivating as it develops. The album closes out with `Every Time It Comes Around` a mesmerising listen that echoes the fact that grief can return at times when least expected and how you have to take a deep breath, exhale, accept and deal with it. A spellbinding offering to end on.
`Land Of My Other` is a fairly consuming listen but will reward you if you set time aside. A deeply personal reflection which touches on subjects that others may shy away from due to their profoundly political affiliations. Ríoghnach has an incredible voice and reminded me of singers such as Dolores Keane and Mary Black. While Stuart`s musical skills give a light and shade feel to the songs shared .
The Breath are indeed a dream team worth inhaling.
Rating 9 /10
