Album Review: Jamie Duffy, Jamie Duffy

Forget Fontaines D.C., Kneecap or even CMAT – folk-classical composer Jamie Duffy is the hottest artist in Ireland right now, at least among those of the Royal College of Music persuasion. Since the release of his debut song ‘Solas’, students the length and breadth of the country have been plaguing their piano teachers for the notation, utterly hooked by its inspiring structure.

And indeed, the track has blasted beyond the confines of the classical fraternity, becoming the most successful debut by an Irish artist since Hozier’s ‘Take Me To Church’, with over 120 million streams on Spotify, 26 million YouTube views, and 6.6 billion views on TikTok. Man, those are some mind-blowing figures!

The 24-year-old Monaghan native’s eponymous debut is a masterful blend of folk, classical and contemporary influences. ‘Torus’ wafts in on a field-recording of birdsong, before Duffy briskly rolls through ambient, folk and classical. Lead single ‘Rising’, written in Iceland, in collaboration with Bafta-winning producer Atli Örvarsson, blends lilting Irish trad whistles and classical strings with tumbling rhythmic piano – fusing the sonics of the Westfjords with Connemara.

Elsewhere, on ‘Breathing’, Duffy’s piano gently tiptoes through an arrangement that hangs like filigree, whilst the magnificent ‘Púca’ is reminiscent of both Ludovico Einaudi and the astral nature of Nils Frahm. What a calling card.

8/10