The Breath

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 the third studio album by The Breath for Real World Records and follows in the footsteps of 2016s debut Carry Your Kin and 2018s Let The Cards Fall.

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.

Further reading

The Breath unveil new video, Let The Cards Fall

The Breath have unveiled the video for ‘Let the Cards Fall’, the title-track from their sophomore album, released this autumn.

Live: The Breath at Trinity Centre, Bristol

The Breath performed a captivating full-band set to a wildly receptive Bristol crowd.

The Breath announce new music and share ‘Only Stories’

Only Stories (Let The Cards Fall Revisited) features acoustic performances from Real World Studios.