CAOIN

The debut album from one of Ireland’s most intriguing emerging talents, visual artist and vocalist Ceara Conway, CAOIN (Cry), clothes traditional sean nós laments, lullabies and love songs with contemporary arrangements to darkly intoxicating effect. Known for articulate excursions into Georgian chant and Portuguese, Arabic and African song, Conway focuses here on her native vocal tradition to produce an album marked by the haunted intimacy of her heart-stilling singing. Culled from her Connemara Gaeltacht inheritance, nine songs exploring themes of longing and loss are delivered with a deeply felt, gently ornamented reverence for the material and its soil-rooted inheritance to express her own ‘version of holy.’

Discreet instrumental accompaniment is provided by producer Seán Mac Erlaine on clarinet, electronics and piano, Kevin Murphy’s lachrymose cello, Ultan O’Brien’s expressive violin and viola, and pianist Francesco Turrisi. In the wake of COVID-19’s worst ravages, CAOIN offers welcome reflection, succour and balm. From the sad, sanguine eulogy of ‘Amhrán na Leabhar’ to the shivering, melancholy resignation of the Famine-inspired ‘Seoithín Seothó’ via the lamenting lead single, ‘An Caoineadh’, and searing ‘Amhrán an Bhá’, Conway provides heartfelt interpretations throughout, adroitly pitched vocals matched by delicate, poetically evocative accompaniments. Sung entirely in Irish, CAOIN pitches Ceara Conway at the forefront of a new generation of sean nós singers.