Nuala Kennedy & Eamon O’ Leary
‘sumptuous folk songs… bracingly beautiful’
Folk Album of the Month * * * *
The GUARDIAN
‘Dazzling’ MOJO * * * *
‘HYDRA’
New Album by Nuala Kennedy & Eamon O’ Leary
Released: 21st August 2024 (UK/IRL), 1st November 2024 (USA).
Following the hand of fate which guided them from a remote village in the Austrian Alps to a tiny island in Greece, long time musical collaborators and world wanderers, Irish traditional singer and musician Nuala Kennedy and Dubliner / New Yorker singer songwriter Eamon O’ Leary have created an atmospheric new album of songs entitled ‘Hydra’.
Hydra is an island where cars are prohibited and the main mode of transport is by donkey or by foot. Recorded in an eighteenth century carpet factory whose large open windows overlook the port, the album vibrates with the unhurried bohemian charm and luscious simplicity that made this place so attractive to past luminaries such as Henry Miller, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Lawrence Durrell, Leonard Cohen and his love Marianne Ihlen…
Indeed Leigh Fermor’s book cover for ‘Mani’, illustrated by the artist John Craxton, inspired the cover for ‘Hydra’ which depicts a melusine or two-tailed mermaid.
The cover was carved by hand, for wood block print by the renowned old-school printing artist Peter Nevins. Nevins has also produced cover work for Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and Anais Mitchell who sings backing vocals here on ‘Liffeyside’ alongside Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) and Cathal McConnell of the Boys of the Lough.
Other special guests include fiddler Liz Knowles who provides string arrangements on the album, and Brian MacGloinn (Ye Vagabonds) on mandolin.
Nuala and Eamon have collaborated with luminaries from across the folk world and beyond including Bonnie Prince Billy, Mike Scott, Beth Orton, Sam Amidon, Anaïs Mitchell, Liz Carroll, Kevin Burke and in the Alt alongside their friend John Doyle.
Noted for their instrumental skills and songwriting as well as a rich tapestry of traditional song; Nuala and Eamon recorded Hydra live together in a spacious open room inside the old carpet factory, with windows opening onto the Aegean Sea. Here they present a timeless selection of stories of the sea, of love and courtship, of work and ritual, of emigration, of war… Hydra reverberates with a sense of space, and a palpable delight in place and storytelling.
Press Contact UK: will@willmccarthy.com
Press Contact USA: kari@kariestrin.com
USA booking agent: flynnc@fliartists.com
Tour Dates:
Support for Bonnie Prince Billy, AUG 2024
22 CLONAKILTY
DE BARRAS (SEATED)
23 CORK
EVERYMAN THEATRE (SEATED)
24 LIMERICK
DOLANS
25 GALWAY
ROISN DUBH
26 DUBLIN
National Concert Hall THEATRE (SEATED)
27 DUBLIN
WHELANS (STANDING)
30 UK MANCHESTER
NEW CENTURY HALL
31 UK GLASGOW
Queen Margaret University
Nuala Kennedy & Eamon O Leary Headline at
Irish Cultural Centre, London
September 1st 2024 8pm
‘beautiful songs both traditional and self-penned, performed with all the assurance you would expect from these seasoned road warriors. A class act.” Edinburgh Music Review, Tradfest 2022
