The acclaimed Irish poet and performer talks about her upcoming debut album, the importance of mystery, and the power of the spoken word
This article is taken from the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of AnOther Magazine:
“Mystery is really important to me. I think every creator should be capable of discussing their work, but there’s a big difference between having a conversation about a piece of work and explaining it away. When you’re performing or creating something, you’re trying to put forward an illusion or a spectacle. Explaining it breaks that spell. There’s such a skill in knowing when to shut up and what to hold back. I always get these images in my head of a hand covering a mouth and a hand covering a heart ... these physical gestures protecting different elements in order not to give away everything you have. Rather than making it more accessible, I think explaining art does the opposite – the explanation would mean nothing once it meant the same to everybody.”
The London-based Irish performer Sinead O’Brien puts potent literary lyrics to music. After focusing her febrile creative spirit on fashion – and tailoring in particular, working at Dior in Paris before spending seven years at Vivienne Westwood, where she became senior womenswear designer – she met bandmates Julian Hanson and Oscar Robertson and her lifelong interest in language, music and experimentation took on a new form. O’Brien’s irresistible semi-spoken word compositions throb with intensity and agile lyrical dexterity, shot through with an arch, singularly avant-garde realism. Following a series of critically acclaimed singles and the 2020 EP Drowning in Blessings, her upcoming debut album, Time Bend and Break the Bower (released in June), promises more hypnotic recitals and rushes of incantatory words – like spells cast to music.
Grooming: Roxy Attard at Future Rep using DAVINES. Photographic assistant: Federico Covarelli
This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale here.