Critically acclaimed Irish artist Niamh Regan shares her second album ‘Come As You Are’ on vinyl, CD, and digital today (31st May 2024) via Faction Records, along with a new video for ‘Waves’ https://youtu.be/zVkoyqgA2YI
VIDEOS:
(*NEW) Waves – https://youtu.be/zVkoyqgA2YI
Madonna – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcO3Achn5tk
Belly – https://youtu.be/xH_c8H3HTHU?si=20Xsk0rhrcNeC28X
Music – https://youtu.be/jsEBqmx5AKA?si=Bf3Uz3SIGBfypoPQ
Niamh Regan’s 2020 debut album ‘Hemet’ introduced her as an artist with a gift for crafting folk-tinged songs with a quiet, reflective intensity. The release started to make waves and achieved over 1 million streams on Spotify and led to nominations for both the RTÉ Folk Awards and the Choice Music Prize ‘Album of the Year’.
Since its release, Niamh has embarked on headline tours from Ireland, to UK, Australia, Spain + more. Pairing this with many festivals and a variety of support opportunities with artist such as CMAT, Villagers, John Grant, SOAK, Patrick Watson, Sam Amidon, Cormac Begley, and Sorcha Richardson.
In between her performances, Niamh began to write her second record in Attica Studios with producer Tommy McLaughlin. She says, ‘I arrived in Donegal to meet Tommy for the first time with a bunch of demos, half-baked ideas and feeling not ready, it was scary. But I’m so glad that I did it that way. Trusted the process and came into the studio with the intention of capturing exactly where I was with it all and Tommy helped me build from there.’
And here we are, with the release of that second album, titled ‘Come As You Are’. It’s an album full of acutely observed vulnerabilities and introspection. Its themes are the issues that many of us find loom large in the small hours: questions of self-doubt, uncertainty about your life’s direction, whether relationships are flourishing in the way you’d hoped and determining priorities.
“A lot of it is about being in your late twenties and kind of realising we’re all running out of time,” she ponders. “I’d have bouts of massive self-belief in the studio, and then in the next breath I would be like, ‘This is the worst piece of music I could have even imagined.’ It was a rollercoaster. But through that I found self-acceptance; this is where I’m at and making peace with that. That’s what the album essentially is, just making peace with where I’m at and being realistic with myself.”
Niamh’s goal for the record was to achieve a richer, full live band sound, inspired by her love of Julia Jacklin, Caroline Rose, and especially Wilco. While there are moments of intimacy, the songs on ‘Come As You Are’ are far grander in scale and ambition than those on ‘Hemet’: the rousing, string-assisted majesty of ‘Waves’, subtle electro-pop beats dancing at the base of the mix in ‘Nice’, the dreamy Petty-esque melancholic swirl of ‘Blame’, and standout track ‘Music’, which, if not for the expressive feminine elegance of her voice, could feel like a lost classic from Jeff Tweedy and co.
Niamh has a contagious passion for performing live, having recently completed tours of Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, the UK, and supporting CMAT in the EU. Niamh explains the joy of releasing new music for her is performing it to a live audience, “It’s the best feeling and I think I’ll be chasing it for the rest of my life.”
And that’s a feeling that ‘Come As You Are’ will help her tap into. It’s an album which is a confident step forward, full of songs with the spark to come alive on stage and with the immediacy to beckon newcomers into her world.
‘Come As You Are’, is out now 31st May 2024 via Faction Records:
https://factionrecords.lnk.to/ComeAsYouAre
TOUR DATES
FREE POP-UP SHOWS + SIGNINGS:
To celebrate the album release, Niamh will be touring across the country performing free pop-up shows in record stores and cafés:
Thurs 30th May – Pot Duggan’s, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, 9pm
Fri 31st May – Fairhill Coffee, Galway, 12 noon
Fri 31st May – Spindizzy Records, Dublin, 6pm
Sat 1st June – MusicZone, Cork, 1pm
Sat 1st June – Prim’s Bookshop, Kinsale, Cork, 4pm
Mon 3rd June – Rollercoaster Records, Kilkenny, 2pm
Weds 5th June – Luca Records, Waterford, 8pm
Thurs 6th June – Steamboat Records, Limerick, 5.15pm
UK (SOLO)
9th June – Metronome, Nottingham | (supporting Memorial)
10th June – Portland Arms, Cambridge | (supporting Memorial)
11th June – Paperdress Vintage, London | (supporting Memorial)
12th June – The Wight Bear, Bournemouth | (supporting Memorial)
IE TOUR DATES 2024
13th June – Windmill Live Show w/James Vincent McMorrow, Dublin (solo)
16th June – Doolin Folk Festival (full band)
16th July – Galway International Arts Festival (full band)
25th July – Song Room, Wexford (solo)
2nd August – All Together Now
12th August – Kilkenny Arts Festival (solo)
17th August – Electric Picnic (solo)
14th November – Cyprus Avenue, Cork (full band – presented by In Bloom Agency)
15th November – Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin (full band – presented by Foggy Notions)
+ more to be announced
For more music, merch, and gig tickets, visit: https://shor.by/zC6c
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