Ríoghnach Connolly and Stuart McCallum are the creative heart of The Breath. And for them, it’s all about the song.
Connolly writes the only way she knows how; a stream of poetic consciousness giving rise to honest, personal, heartfelt songs as likely to touch on childhood summers and first love as cultural dislocation, post-colonial injustices and grief. But it’s her deeply soulful, utterly engaging, stop-you-in-your-tracks voice —whether delicate and hushed or powerful and gutsy— coupled with Stuart’s understated brilliance and their exquisitely crafted songs, that give The Breath such emotional depth.
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.
Produced by renowned composer/pianist Thomas Bartlett, and with the wildly acclaimed duo that is singer Ríoghnach [Ree-uh-na] Connolly and guitarist Stuart McCallum at its core, it’s a project that grabs you by the scruff from the off.
Ten original tracks. Raw, gorgeous, acoustic-minded music. Synths and effects so subtle they might be invisible. Negative space created, shaded, created again. Lyrics with meaning, power and an often terrible beauty. Personal songs about birth and death. About family, ghosts and a childhood informed by the H-Blocks. Political songs decrying man-made borders and capitalist greed. Personal is political songs recalling pointing rifles, stop-and-searches and knowing the back way out. Songs that let the listener decide which is which.
The Breath mark the 50th anniversary of lost American folk icon Karen Dalton's album In My Own Time with a cover of 'Something On Your Mind', as well as adding music to a Karen Dalton original lyric, 'Remembering Mountains'.
Only Stories (Let the Cards Fall Revisited) is a duo recording that captures the very essence of The Breath with a selection of skilfully crafted songs —mostly from their recent album Let the Cards Fall. Stuart McCallum’s beautifully insistent, subtle guitar is the perfect partner to Ríoghnach Connolly’s intoxicating, passionate voice.
A bewitching collection of songs that journeys from lush, beguiling storytelling to uplifting, punch-the-air anthems. Allowed to mature and breathe without losing the widescreen, multi-textured kaleidoscope of sound that marked their debut, Let the Cards Fall refines The Breath's unique Manchester take on alt-folk.
