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Sinead O’Brien shares new track ‘Girlkind’ from upcoming debut album

It comes complete with a video directed by Saskia Dixie

By Will Richards

Sinead O'Brien in a dark room looking at the camera
Sinead O'Brien. Credit: Chloe Le Drezen.

Irish punk poet Sinead O’Brien has shared a new track called ‘Girlkind’, taken from her as-yet-unannounced debut album, due out in 2022.

The new song follows O’Brien‘s 2020 EP ‘Drowning In Blessings’, and comes complete with a video directed by Saskia Dixie.

Discussing the idea behind the video, Dixie said: “I wanted to create something that responded directly to the form and patterning of Sinead’s track.

“We have been fascinated with the shape of performative and neutral states of being for a long time and the film for ‘Girlkind’, I think, gets to the core of this idea. The passing of time is a reliable certainty that drives on regardless of what contrasting state you are currently embodying, so this became the base thread for the piece.

“Simple domestic activities swell into loops that feel absurd and almost choreographic in parts of the work. Whilst action and consequence are mapped out visually, time becomes fragmented, as the action takes place in the neutral arena, and the result, a mark or stain, comes through into the performative sphere.”

Watch the ‘Girlkind’ video below:

On the themes of the track, O’Brien added:

“I am out in the elements. At the mercy of others.  Pulled in all directions. I wait endless.  The phenomenon of the moving statues in Ireland during the 1980s becomes a motif.  When the virgin rocks the statues come to stop”. 

She added: “These verses are glimpses into experience. Girlkind and Humanhood Persevering eternity. Balancing, evaluating. Going back and forth. Keep forging a way through.”

O’Brien is set to play a number of shows across the end of 2021 and first half of next year, including festival dates and a support slot with IDLES. See the full list of dates below:

NOVEMBER 2021
19 – Utrecht, De Nijverheid

DECEMBER 2021
5 – Rennes, Trans Musicales

JANUARY 2022
7-9 – Bognor Regis, Rockaway Beach Festival
18 – London, Brixton Academy (supporting IDLES)

FEBRUARY 2022
22 – Dublin, The Grand Social

JUNE 2022
6 – Barcelona, Sidecar (Primavera In The City)