Following on from the release of Wild, the video for which we premiere here, Dublin-based group Sun Collective has dropped another delight in the form of ‘New Light‘. Musically it feels like a song steeped in deep meditative reflection, a feeling accentuated from the off by the circular melodies from Caimin Gilmore‘s meditative guitar patterns and his unforgettable vocals. The opening guitar is captivating and could easily stand alone as an engaging instrumental but this is just the preparation of the canvas upon which Gilmore builds. Again, accentuated by Lisa Hannigan’s breezy vocals, New Light has some beautiful flourishes. They catch the ear like flickers of light catch the eye through some breeze-blown gauze-like curtain…Lina Andonovska’s bass flute and Nick Roth’s Alto Sax offer some jazz-like quivering abstract shapes which punctuate through Gilmore’s lyrics before being allowed to briefly take flight and free-falling back to solid ground.
Sun Collective have yet again delivered musical poetry of the highest order and is why I’ve chosen it as our Song of the Day.
Produced by Ross Turner (Lisa Hannigan, Villagers), and recorded by Ber Quinn (John Grant, Divine Comedy), ‘New Light’ features a bespoke artwork commission from Cork’s visual artist Sophie Gough.
Speaking about the song, the band’s front man Caimin Gilmore says: “I had been listening to a lot of Adrianne Lenker’s solo work before writing ‘New Light’. I wanted to somehow replicate the richness of her guitar recordings and cross pollinate it with arrangements like Nico Muhly’s on Sam Amidon’s record ‘I See the Sign’. I included a Nashville strung Guitar, and asked two of my good friends, contemporary classical musicians Lina Andonovska (bass flute) and Nick Roth (alto-sax), to improvise over the track. The result is a bastardisation of the two influences that I think created this very internal and dream-like song.
“It also features vocals from songwriter Lisa Hannigan, whom I have been fortunate to work with for a number of years and who gratefully lent her beautiful voice to the arrangement.”
‘New Light’ is the second of three singles shared in the run-up to, and in conjunction with, the groups’ appearance on award-winning and internationally acclaimed Irish music series, Other Voices, April 15th on RTÉ 2 television. For U.K viewers on RTÉ player, & subsequently on Other Voices YouTube.
New single ‘New Light’ by Sun Collective, is out now (Tuesday 6th April)
Bandcamp: https://suncollective.bandcamp.com/track/new-light
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/NewLightSpotify