The song is tight, organic, invigorating – featuring a Planxty-style flute break by Ríoghnach Connolly and Stuart McCallum on acoustic and baritone acoustic guitars, merging patterns echoed on piano provided by Thomas Bartlett.

“On this album Ríoghnach is really getting to the root of what she’s about,” says McCallum. “We’ve done a lot of gigs as a duo and become stronger and more confident in just us two, in not hiding behind anything. There’s no way Ríoghnach would have been this open five years ago.”

The album, ‘Land of My Other’ is the third album by The Breath. 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 set for release on vinyl, CD and digitally via Real World Records on 13 October 2023. Pre-save here: https://lnk.to/RW251

“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 Irish/American supergroup 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 a place of memories and melodies, lyricism and lore. A place of sunlight, faerie-tales and rowan trees; of grief, incarceration and thunder in darkness. A place where ancestral trauma and colonial injustice meet blazing pride, romantic self-rule and hands held in a circle in the sea.

Where songs are sung with feeling, instruments are everywhere and music lives deep within our bones.
‘Land of My Other’. The third studio album by The Breath.

The Breath will be showcasing songs from ‘Land of My Other’ at a handful of UK shows later this month. Catch the band headlining Manchester Folk Expo and London’s Union Chapel at these fixtures as follows:

THE BREATH – LIVE DATES
16th October – London, Union Chapel – TICKETS
21st October – Manchester, New Century Hall (headlining Folk Expo) – TICKETS

ALBUM TRACKLISTING (CAT #RW251)

Don’t Rush It
Little One
Land of My Other
Burning Away
Cliona’s Wave
Remembering the Flood
Head Down
Letters From Long Kesh
Without You in It
Every Time It Comes Around