Coming Home

This new release from the Irish singer is more than simply a new album – it’s a broad creative response to her ancestry, upbringing in County Derry, nonagenarian mother and raising of three children. The result is an album of her original poetry set to music plus a book of the same name collecting those poems with stories and memories from her life.

Working with her long-time collaborator and husband, Sam Lakeman, Dillon has created an atmospheric meditation on place and family, with piano, guitar, cello, violin and synths building the majesty of the spoken word. Sliding between singing and poetry, there’s something of Scottish musician Karine Polwart in the delicate observational treatment, and also a hint of The Waterboys’ mesmerising take on WB Yeats’ poem, ‘The Stolen Child’.

A persistent element in Dillon’s music is a certain polish and pop commerciality. While this is often a much more stripped-back affair, there are still moments that feel like they could do with a bit more grit. Despite that, this first album of entirely original material is a striking pleasure, principally for Dillon’s poetry, with its visceral snapshots of nature and moment.