The Breath have shared “Little One”, the latest track from their forthcoming album ‘Land of My Other’ (out 13 October via Real World Records).

The song, “Little One”, is highly personal to singer Ríoghnach Connolly and was written when on the cusp of motherhood. A song about loss suffered, fear of the future, and ultimately unbridled joy.

“It’s about driving back from gigs late at night and having a cry while holding tight to the steering wheel,” she says. Then smiles: “It turns out we’re not raising a wallflower, which is great.”

This ode to the child to come finds a perfect foil in the music’s soothing beauty, all textural guitar and hand-clapped rhythm: “lay down with me my little one / I have you now the day is done”.

The new album, ‘Land of My Other’ offers ten original tracks of raw, gorgeous, acoustic-minded music. Songs that tell stories in ways that soothe, stir, exalt, and touch emotional chords that will bring tears of lamenting joy to your eyes.

‘Land of My Other’ is the third album by The Breath, written and performed by the sublime partnership of Ríoghnach [Ree-uh-na] Connolly and guitarist Stuart McCallum.

“We work like two halves of a single songwriter,” says McCallum, the Manchester-based composer and producer. “Imagine a guitarist and a singer who are not separate but are separate people. We just have this really special connection that lets us listen, adapt and evolve a piece of music together.”

Connolly nods her agreement. “Stuart is the yin to my yang,” says the BBC Folk Singer of the Year, her north of Ireland accent un-tempered by two decades of Manchester living. “He has one face. I have many. He’s very measured. I’m not. I like mayhem. He doesn’t. I know where I am with him.”

‘Land of My Other’ is produced by renowned composer/pianist Thomas Bartlett, and he joins the duo on keys for some of the recordings. Such a remarkable bond between Connolly and McCallum might have intimidated a lesser producer, but the Ireland-born, US-based Bartlett (famed for his work with the likes of Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent, Florence Welch and The Gloaming), intuited how to frame The Breath’s distinctive brand of art.

“The main aim was to capture the duo” he says, of an album that was recorded in Manchester and at Real World Studios. “I’d sit at the piano not playing very much, just locating the energy and helping to focus it in a way I wanted it to happen. Sometimes I wanted to join in the fun.”

‘Land of My Other’ is the domain of memories and melodies, lyricism, and lore. A place of sunlight, faerie-tales and rowan trees; of grief, incarceration and thunder in darkness. A realm where ancestral trauma and colonial injustice meet blazing pride, romantic self-rule, all the while with hands held in a circle across the sea. Where songs are sung with feeling, instruments are everywhere and music lives deep within our bones.

Alongside the release, The Breath will also play a show at London’s Union Chapel and a headline slot at Manchester’s Folk Expo this October. Full dates and details below.

THE BREATH UK LIVE DATES 2023

OCTOBER
16 LONDON Union Chapel
21 MANCHESTER New Century Hall (headlining Folk Expo)

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‘LAND OF MY OTHER’ TRACKLIST

1. Don’t Rush It
2. Little One
3. Land of My Other
4. Burning Away
5. Cliona’s Wave
6. Remembering The Flood
7. Head Down
8. Letters From Long Kesh
9. Without You In It
10. Every Time It Comes Around