Photo credits: Sorcha Frances Ryder
Irish-Catalan vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Rita Perry recently released her debut EP ‘Kill Your Darlings‘, following initial singles ‘Seasons‘ and ‘Tard pel Treball‘. With songs moving fluidly between Catalan and English, mirroring Perry’s natural speaking style, the record introduces an intimate and self-assured debut.
Written, recorded, and self-produced between her family home in Ireland and Barcelona, ‘Kill Your Darlings’ stands as both an inward reckoning and an act of release. Each language explored holds its own landscape and emotion, exploring how place, memory, and identity intertwine. The misquote title ‘Kill Your Darlings’ speaks to the delicate balance of freedom and restraint that defines the act of making and the sole, potentially lonely, experience of shaping your art.
For Perry, the project reflects “the nostalgia for the things that have led me to who I am today. It tries to track the worlds from different spoken languages and the places they create in my body.”
Lead single ‘Atrapada’ follows the bilingual interplay of ‘Tard pel Treball’, but, rather than the light playfulness of the previous single, “there’s a growing claustrophobic feeling. The switching of words feels confused and overwhelmed.”
The track explores a sense of disorientation and emotional confinement, capturing the experience of existing between languages and forms of expression, without finding your footing in any. Perry explains “it’s a song that looks straight at that tension and doubt in my sense of belonging and authenticity. The speaker in this song questions what it means to be understood.”
Grounded in her voice and guitar, Rita Perry is joined by the driving percussion of Robbie Perry (Rita’s Father, and member of band Dead Can Dance), Caimin Gilmore’s double bass, and Peter Broderick on strings, while Pep Gol’s trumpet and banjo from Jonny Pickett (DUG) rounds out the arrangements.
Drawing from her strong familial roots and a close-knit circle of contemporary peers, Rita Perry’s debut emerges as a meditation on identity and belonging. ‘Kill Your Darlings’ is available now to purchase on Bandcamp and stream.
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