Just in time for the feast of All Hallows, singer-songwriter Ciara Sidine’s brand new single ‘All Souls Night’ is a haunting, modern meditation on a 16th century ballad that spotlights a remarkable heroine of the supernatural shadows.
Inspired by the Scottish ballad ‘Tam Lin’ – a tale of love, unplanned pregnancy and fairy lore – ‘All Souls Night’ is a roots/country-influenced take on the heroine of the song’s heart, and her journey of self and soul at the time of year when the veil between worlds is thinnest.
Through layers of tremolo and delay, Conor Brady’s distinctive guitar creates an otherworldly vibration to support Sidine’s resonant vocal in this, the first release from her upcoming EP of bold and beautiful tracks inspired by songs and heroines of folk balladry. The collection unearths and subverts women’s representations in the folk music canon and stems from Sidine’s research across song archives in the Irish, American and Anglo traditions.
In the ballad which inspired ‘All Souls Night’, Janet, a young pregnant woman, finds herself alone after her lover has vanished. He appears to her in the woods as she gathers herbs to bring about an end to her pregnancy. He has been taken by the fairies to be betrothed to their queen, and he tasks her with a heroine quest – to cross into the otherworld on All Souls’ Night and risk life and limb to retrieve him. Sidine’s modern interpretation is a tale of the tension between desire and autonomy, love and reason, and what emerges is a mystically memorable new folk classic.
An original show based on her archival research is also currently in development, combining new and old songs and stories in an odyssey through collective memory and myth.
‘All Souls Night’ was recorded with Sidine’s band live at Camden Recording Studios, with Conor Brady on guitar, Robbie Malone on bass and Dave Hingerty on drums.
The recording was supported through funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media as administered via the Music Industry Stimulus Package 2020.
Dublin singer-songwriter has released two critically acclaimed albums, Shadow Road Shining and Unbroken Line. Her distinctive sound mixes Americana and Celtic influences and she has received as much attention for her fine singing voice as for her melodies and poetic, emotionally resonant lyrics. Ciara has appeared on Other Voices and toured in Ireland and abroad.
She is also one of Ireland’s leading book editors and publishers, central to establishing the presence of international publisher Hachette in Ireland in the early 2000s. In recent years, she has published books by some of Ireland’s foremost change-making women, including Vicky Phelan, Catherine Corless and Dr Marie Cassidy.
Platforming women’s voices is central to her work in music as well as books, reflected in such tracks from her 2017 album Unbroken Line as ‘Finest Flower’, drawn from testimony of survivors of Ireland’s mother and baby homes, and her roots rock call to chaos ‘Trouble Come Find Me’.
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