Lisa O’Neill announces new album with video for 'Old Note'

Cavan singer-songwriter Lisa O'Neill has announced her new album, All Of This Is Chance, with a stunning video for 'Old Note'.

The upcoming album will be unveiled on February 10th via Rough Trade, and comes alongside the news of an Irish and UK tour in Spring 2023, including a show at The Barbican in London on March 23rd.

O'Neill's new album follows five BBC Folk Awards nominations, Choice Music Prize nominations and a Folk Album of the Year accolade in The Guardian in 2019 for her recent album Heard a Long Gone Song on Rough Trade’s River Lea imprint, The Wren EP in 2019 and an adaptation of Bob Dylan’s ‘All the Tired Horses’ for the final scene of epic BBC drama Peaky Blinders.

O’Neill, one of the most evocative songwriters in contemporary Irish music today, returns with her first LP for the Rough Trade label. The beautiful, resonant All Of This Is Chance will available on exclusive silver vinyl at indie retail and the webstore, pre-order here.

A raconteur in the truest sense of the word, O’Neill starts this extraordinary collection here on earth, on Irish soil, hands in the land. The album features orchestral masterpieces such as the ambitious and cinematic 'Old Note', the title track 'All Of This Is Chance' - inspired by the great Monaghan writer Patrick Kavanagh's prescient meditation on The Great Hunger - as well as stirring meditations on nature, birds, berries, bees, and blood that ring out over a clacking banjo.

On 'Old Note', Colm Mac Con Iomaire delivers a divine orchestral accompaniment to a sad lullaby which explores another interwoven theme of this collection, that being the wall between us and an intuition with nature we once had.

The song was inspired by an interview with the great traditional musician Tony McMahon. "Feathered friend, dig up and resurrect me, I long to live among the song of birdies, A lawless league of lonesome, lonesome beauty, Skies and skies and skies above duty."

Watch the beautiful new video below.

In 2021, The Abbey Theatre invited Lisa to perform in their historic outdoor adaptation of Kavanagh’s tragic 1942 masterpiece The Great Hunger on the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham. Particularly significant because it was one of Ireland’s first forays back into the live cultural arena as the arts continued to try and navigate the pandemic era.

For Lisa O’Neill, it held even greater significance. The experience of immersing herself in and researching Kavanagh’s remarkable 6,000-word poem was part catalyst to make this new album unlocking a mutual fascination with themes around nature and creativity.

When reading Kavanagh she was reminded of the speech of her Mother’s townland, Crossdoney. The words of Kavanagh himself and lines from The Great Hunger that open this album on the title track:

“Clay is the word and clay is the flesh / Where the potato-gatherers like mechanized scarecrows move / Along the side-fall of the hill.”

A revolving door of esteemed musicians come and go throughout the album including long-time collaborator on bass Joseph Doyle, Kerry concertina guru Cormac Begley, the cinematic genius of Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Kate Ellis of the Crash Ensemble, pianist Ruth O’Mahony Brady, drummer Lorcan Byrne, producer Dave Odlum on guitar, as well as Colm O’Hara on trombone, Brian Leach on hammer dulcimer, Mic Geraghty on harmonium and David Coulter on saw. Lisa’s young niece, Sadie-Mae O’Neill supplies a precious additional voice on 'Old Note'.

It is at times a dramatic album, addressing wonder, fear the suppression of the spirt and the disconnect from the land.

Full tour dates below. Tickets are on sale now here.

November

16: Dolans, Limerick
17: Roisin Dubh, Galway
19: St Johns Theatre, Listowel
20: The White Horse, Ballincollig Cork
26: National Concert Hall, Dublin
27: Hawkswell, Sligo

December
8 & 9: Coughlan's, Cork
11: Debarras, Clonakilty

UK TOUR DATES 2023

16th March – Leeds, Howard Assembly Room
17th March – York, The Black Swan
18th March – Kendal, Brewery Arts Centre
19th March – Liverpool, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (Music Room)
21st March – Bristol, St George’s
22nd March – Oxford, SJE Arts Centre
23rd March – London, Barbican Centre
25th March – Gateshead, Sage (Hall 2)
27th March – Edinburgh, Voodoo Rooms
28th March – Manchester, Band On The Wall