Music from the Heart

Dublin artist Sorcha Richardson’s debut album ‘First Prize Bravery’ was the culmination of her experiences throughout young adulthood, a time during which she ventured from home in Dublin to New York, Los Angeles and then back again. Greeted by critical acclaim from Nylon, The Irish Times, DIY and more, comparisons were made with Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers et al, leading to a nomination for the Choice Music Prize. She toured the UK and Ireland, hit a few festivals and then… well, we all know what threw a spanner in the works.

Two years on, and she seems to have made peace with her misfortune - especially as she has friends who never got to fully tour their releases which emerged at a similar time. “In some ways I feel lucky that we at least got one lap around the track,” she evaluates, noting that her subsequent Irish headline tour was rescheduled so many times that the exact number has been lost to history. “It felt like it killed some of the momentum I had drummed up. But it also meant that I had all the time in the world to make my second record.”

Instead, she moved into her late grandparents’ house, turned the living room into an impromptu if elementary studio, and delved into the “static process” of working alone, and then a month-long love/hate process of almost daily sessions via Zoom. At first, Sorcha thought that her early demos were a little too persistently happy. The more she wrote, however, the more she discovered an inner tension, with subsequent songs often being informed by a nervous “undercurrent of anxiety.” She also pushed to expose some of those discomforting emotions too, leading to the album’s darker opening half with the “self-destructive impulses” and repetition of bad habits that inform ‘Stalemate’, ‘Shark Eyes’ and ‘Purgatory’.

As she continues, those themes spiralled into thoughts of self-confidence and identity in new relationships. “When you let someone else into your life in a very intimate and vulnerable way, you learn new things about yourself: these are the parts of myself I know, these are the parts of myself I didn’t know, these are parts of myself I know are bad and I need to resist. I think in all new relationships, there’s so much uncertainty. There’s a need to take a leap of faith and ask someone to take a bet on you, or to take a bet on you when you’re not sure you would bet on yourself.”

"Shark Eyes" is the second taste of the forthcoming album. “It is about being totally infatuated with someone who you know isn’t as interested in you as you are in them," Richardson explains. "It’s about following your darker and more destructive impulses and allowing yourself to be taken for a bit of a ride, partly out of boredom and curiosity, but also partly out of a lingering hope that maybe this time it will end differently."

Starting with repeated piano motive, it later turns into a catchy pop tune where it gets harder to understand the lyrics and the dreamy, melancholic melody gets into your head. You can catch Sorcha Richardson live:

July 21st - Festival Big Top, Galway, Ireland

July 30th - All Together Now, Portlaw, Ireland

Sept 2nd - Sept 4th - Electric Picnic, Stradbally, Ireland

"But I ain’t waiting on the outside
Looking for your invite
Wondering how the rules might change the game"