Photo Credit Kayta Kaushan
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED IRISH ALT-FOLK ARTIST NIAMH REGAN ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM ‘COME AS YOU ARE’ OUT MAY 31ST ON FACTION RECORDS
+ SHARES NEW SONG + VIDEO ‘MADONNA’
Listen to ‘Madonna’ on streaming platforms HERE
Pre-order the album on vinyl and CD HERE
Critically acclaimed artist Niamh Regan returns with first single ‘Madonna’, from her upcoming album ‘Come As You Are’ (out 31st May 2024 via Faction Records). Written in a stream of consciousness, ‘Madonna’ focuses on violence often suffered by women. It’s also symbolic of Niamh’s disregard for genre expectations & showcasing her prowess as a singer-songwriter.
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 RTE Folk Awards and the Choice Music Prize ‘Album of the Year’.
Since its release, Niamh has embarked on headline tours around Ireland, UK, Australia, and 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, Sorcha Richardson, Josh Ritter, and many more, which has led to Niamh’s new-found confidence and joy performing on stage.
In between her performances, she 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 upcoming release of that second album, now 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’.
While ‘Come As You Are’ represents a bold evolution for Niamh, its first single ‘Madonna’ is the song that feels most intrinsically tied to her debut. It’s a raw, one-take live recording of her voice and acoustic guitar which has a hymnal warmth. Niamh offers, “I wanted to start the album kind of as bravely as possible and I think that way is to do it on your own.”
‘Madonna’ by Niamh Regan, is out now (Wednesday 7th February 2024).
https://factionrecords.lnk.to/Madonna
Pre-order Niamh Regan’s album ‘Come As You Are’, out 31st May 2024 via Faction Records.
https://irishmusicmarket.com/collections/niamh-regan
Upcoming Live Dates (Solo shows in Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, UK + EU)
SOLO DATES – IRELAND:
Jan 27th – Leitrim, The Dock **SOLD OUT
Feb 2nd – Galway **SOLD OUT
Feb 3rd – Kilkenny **SOLD OUT
Feb 4th – Cork City **SOLD OUT
Feb 8th – Limerick
Feb 9th – Wicklow
Feb 10th – Ballydehob, Co Cork **SOLD OUT
Feb 11th – Kinsale, Co Cork **SOLD OUT
Mar 2nd – Dublin **SOLD OUT
SPAIN
Feb 16th Jazz Cava, Vic (SP)
Feb 17th El Club, La Selva del Camp
Feb 18th Centro Cívico Delicias, Zaragoza (SP)
Feb 19th Teatre del Raval, Castellón (SP)
SWITZERLAND
March 15th Brienz **SOLD OUT
March 16th Brienz **SOLD OUT
March 19th Cafe Marta
European Dates with CMAT
March 5th – Vienna, Austria March 27th – Munich, Germany March 28th – Zurich, Switzerland
UK DOUBLE HEADLINE TOUR – APRIL 2024 – with CHRISTOF VAN DER VEN
April 2nd – Hug & Pint, Glasgow
April 3rd – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
April 4th – Cardigan Arms, Leeds
April 5th – The Engine Room, North Shields
April 7th – The Folklore Rooms, Brighton
April 8th – Servant Jazz Quarters, London
April 9th – Gulliver’s, Manchester
Tickets on sale now: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/12851425-niamh-regan
