Friday 01th November 2024
Location: Cleeres Bar and Theatre, 28 Parliament Street, Kilkenny
Dublin-born singer and composer Rachael Lavelle’s debut album ‘Big Dreams’, released via her Rest Energy label, has quickly seen her become recognized as one of Ireland’s most exciting emerging talents. The album received a nomination for Ireland’s prestigious Choice Music Prize Album of the Year. Lavelle has also been tapped to tour with breakthrough Irish trailblazers Lankum and CMAT, as well as taking part in the Sorcha Richardson curated ‘Imagining Ireland’ at The Barbican in London and the National Concert Hall in Dublin alongside SOAK, Ye Vagabonds, Aby Coulibaly, and more.
‘Big Dreams’ is an existential coming-of-age album that chronicles the journey of a young woman searching for direction and meaning in a very strange world. Inspired by sounds of everyday life and an intriguing obsession with YouTube self-help videos, the album explores romance, directionless-ness, ambition, and the expectations of the unsatisfied digital native. ‘Big Dreams’ is an introspective journey that invites the listener to ask what it means to be alive in the 21st century. Floating in a world that is at once full of irony and honesty, Rachael examines the essential things: sleeping, eating, work, and the search for love, reimagining them in a dream-like musical landscape of luscious synths, manipulated vocals, cinematic sound design, strings, woodwind, and electronic beats. A wry sense of humor peppered throughout is glued together by the iconic voice of Doireann Ní Bhriain, the voice of the Luas transport system in Dublin.
Recorded in various locations between Ireland and Portugal, the album is the result of years of experimentation and destruction. Written and produced by Lavelle, it was created alongside long-time collaborator, multi-instrumentalist, and co-producer Ryan Hargadon (moondiver, Anna Mieke, Kojaque) and engineer and co-producer Alex Borwick (Niamh Regan, Inni-K).
In the years prior to the release of her debut, Lavelle has also toured with the likes of Villagers and Anna B Savage. She’s also collaborated with a wide range of artists including Peter Broderick and Saint Sister, and lent vocals to the aforementioned Villagers’ album ‘Fever Dream’ (via Domino Records).
**Press Quotes**
– “Big Dreams is disarming and layered… Slow-burning art-pop that is at once inventive and soothing… Gently compelling.” —The Guardian, One To Watch
– “A deliciously off-beat characterful debut” —UNCUT, 8/10
– “One of 2023’s most spectacular debuts” —NARC Magazine, 5/5
– “There’s a duality to Lavelle’s wonderful debut, a record at once stridently confident in its experimentation while also underpinned by vulnerability” —The Times
– “As is befitting of an album released as winter nights encroach, this is a record to hibernate to” —The Irish Times
– “One of the stand-out (Choice Music Prize) nominees is the debut album ‘Big Dreams’, a beautifully enchanting rumination on coming of age and the search for direction and clarity in a strange world of countless uncertainty.” —
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