Following on from releases ‘Ghost on the Waves,’ featuring harpist and singer Aisling Urwin (Ajeet/Woven Kin), ‘Dealán Dé’ with world-renowned Irish flute and whistle player Brian Finnegan (FLOOK) and ‘Teasgal’ with I Have A Tribe, Cork-born, Belfast-based sixth generation fiddler, bilingual singer, and multi-instrumentalist Clare Sands shares new single ‘Crónán na Sruthán’, featuring Galway singer-songwriter, Niamh Regan.
This ethereal, moody meditation on forbidden love and lost forests is the final collaboration of her four-part music and film project, ‘Gormacha’, [pronounced GUR-MA-KA] which treads a musical path between the four most extreme geographical points in Ireland – Mizen, Malin, Dunmore, and Wicklow Head. Tracing the line between rugged land and stormy seas, Gormacha interweaves Irish folklore, language, and personal responses to our natural world.
Watch ‘Crónán na Sruthán’ here: https://youtu.be/uGdAOubysGI?si=oMaxgKW-UtR8Ld4z
Weaving between Irish and English, ‘Crónán na Sruthán’ – meaning the croon of the stream – was recorded on and inspired by the most easterly point in Ireland, Wicklow Head. Regan’s soaring vocals and driving electric guitar interweave with Sands’ traditional melodies and rhythmic percussion to culminate the final chapter of Gormacha, a moving ode to language and landscape.
Though County Wicklow is well-known as the ‘Garden of Ireland,’ the song laments the loss of our native woodlands. Clare says, “this song follows the journey of two lovers’ forbidden love. One lives by the sea, and the other by the source of the river. They can no longer meet in the day or the dead of the night because there are no trees left to cover them…” She remarks how Ireland is covered by only 2% native woodland – where it used to be 80% and says “this song can bring hope, and encourage people to protect and love what is not only in us, but around and beyond us.”
The accompanying video, directed and shot by visual artists and twin sisters Liadain and Kasia Kaminska, captures the treacherous journey through fading forests and along the river until it meets the sea. The duo recall the winter shoot in late 2022: “We wanted to celebrate what little native woodland remains in Ireland through the video, and also share that sense of hope and freedom in the journey from the source of the river to the open sea.”
‘Crónán na Sruthán’ is the final song in a series of four, that are deeply personal and universal, sensual and spiritual, ancient and new. Navigating music, film, and photography, ‘Gormacha’ journeys into the darkness, but seeks to find solace and celebration ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea.’
VIDEOS:
Ghost on the Waves – Clare Sands & Aisling Urwin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W4KDwbdXC0
Dealán Dé – Clare Sands & Brian Finnegan
https://youtu.be/XFVNN5191UE?si=N6Mj3ryC5u7PKdBa
Teasgal – Clare Sands & I Have A Tribe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWcmunffDvU
**NEW Crónán na Sruthán – Clare Sands & Niamh Regan
https://youtu.be/uGdAOubysGI?si=oMaxgKW-UtR8Ld4z
Gormacha EP is out now on special edition Blue Cassette with original cyanotype print & lyric booklet, riso-printed with biodegradable soy-based inks on FSC-certified paper by Way Bad Press, designed by Kasia Kaminska.