Dublin-born singer-songwriter Sorcha Richardson has returned with the announcement of her new album Draw The Outline, out 11th September via Faction Records. Alongside the album, Richardson has also shared the single Illinois Again. With just two albums to her name, Richardson has been making a name for herself as one of Ireland’s most magnetic songwriters, as well as landing a Choice Music Prize nomination for her debut album First Prize Bravery; she topped the Irish Independent Albums Chart for its follow-up, Smiling Like An Idiot.
Speaking on the single, Richardson says, “Illinois Again is a bittersweet song about connection and loneliness. It’s doing the thing you’ve always dreamed of doing, surrounded by friends, and yet still feeling an undercurrent of isolation and not fully understanding why. It began as an attempt to capture the dreamy vignette of a headline tour across North America, but in writing about that euphoria, I kept finding a quiet sense of disconnection. It’s wanting to share a moment but feeling like you’ll never be able to explain it to someone else, or even hold on to it properly for yourself. This song is an attempt to hold those feelings side by side; the joy and loneliness.”
Originally from Dublin, Richardson spent nearly a decade living in New York before returning to Ireland, eventually moving from Dublin to West Kerry a couple of years ago. The latter is a place shaped by quiet, at the foot of a mountain and a short walk from the sea, where life moves at a slower pace. In that stillness, the album gradually took form. It was, as she puts it, “a nice place to be.”
“A lot of my previous stuff is me observing other people’s conversations, or me observing my conversations with other people. A lot of this album is me observing my conversations within my own head,” she says. “There’s a surreal, dream-like quality to it. It moves between me here in the room with you now and then, all of the things that my brain is throwing up to me; fears, memories, imagined outcomes.” Influenced by the approach of artists like Feist and Aldous Harding, the production was by Chris W Ryan (Chalk, Just Mustard, New Dad). Richardson was also inspired, in part, by the intimacy of small performances—she recalls seeing Laura Marling do a set in a church at Other Voices Festival. She continues, “‘Draw the Outline,’ to me, is kind of an instruction to start without needing to know where you’re going.”
The album can be preordered here.
“Draw The Outline” Tracklisting:
1. Sea Pink Moon
2. Grenadine
3. Fake Venice
4. Illinois Again
5. Ellen Forever
6. Dog’s Best Man
7. Adam (Pacing in the Park)
8. The Orchard
9. Sunshine Season
10. The Video
