“One of the finest Irish albums of the year” Róisín Dwyer | Hotpress

“This album extends beyond innovative musical arrangements, even beyond the skill of poetic, expressive lyrics. Blunnie’s songs are transcendent and transporting.” Colleen Taylor| NY Irish Echo

Vocals recalling Sinéad Lohan, Laurie Anderson or Denmark’s Agnes Obel, and a songwriting style that “pushes the boundaries, both sonically and lyrically” (Róisín Dwyer, Hot Press), Ailie Blunnie’s blend of palpably Irish experimental folktronica melds assured songcraft, inventive arrangements, and delicately-expansive soundscapes developed in collaboration with producer, Daragh Dukes (Headgear / Wyos / Asylum Speakers).

“A taster from the Leitrim singer-songwriter’s forthcoming début album shows a craftswoman who knows the right measure of guile and atmospherics which a soundscape of this majesty requires.” Jim Carroll | Irish Times

“..songs sound like they were spirited up from the landscape of her home in North-West Ireland” 4**** Alan Corr | RTÉ Entertainment

Four years in the making, Blunnie’s début album, West to the Evening Sun, climbs like a wallflower along a diversity of sonic contours. Quietly clinging to trauma, loss, healing, hope, and questions of motherhood and identity on the way (as well as a brief brush with a bicycle), it asks little of the listener but to accept an invitation to eavesdrop:

“‘West to the Evening Sun’ is not just music—it’s poetry too. Listening to these songs is like sitting alone in an archive, reading a collection of letters shared between the closest of friends. There is tragedy, confession, hope, love. Moreover, there is narrative as well as harmonic integrity.” Colleen Taylor | NY Irish Echo

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ALBUM REVIEWS

4**** Review | RTE Radio One ARENA
4**** Review by Alan Corr | RTE Entertainment
Review by Colleen Taylor | New York IRISH ECHO

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NY Irish Echo’s “top pick for best début album and best début artist in 2017”

“Ambient, hauntingly intimate and very moving, this is something rather special from the singer-songwriter from Carrick-on-Shannon” (Alan Corr, RTÉ Entertainment)

“a tour de force of masterful songwriting, which pushes the boundaries, both sonically and lyrically” (Róisín Dwyer, Hotpress)

“I hope people outside of Ireland get to hear this album….a serious talent” (4**** RTÉ Radio One ARENA)

“The Leitrim musician has been on the radar for a few years now and this fine assured début suggests she has spent her time judiciously.” (John Meagher, Irish Independent)

“‘Beat of Your Heart’ travels a wide musical range, from new age and Celtic, to folk, pop and rock, and even a slam poetry moment. It all somehow fits together in a perfectly cohesive, mesmerizing way.” (Colleen Taylor, Irish Echo, New York)

One of John Kelly’s “favourite up-and-coming Irish artists of 2017” (Mystery Train, RTÉ Lyric FM)

“Ailie Blunnie has a remarkable way of playing with silence and minimalistic loops that create beautiful textures that morph in and out of completely different styles. Her voice is innocent and sweet, her music is thrillingly sinister.” (Emma Leddy, KnockanStockan Music & Arts Festival)

“So new, so fresh, and so good” (Carl Corcoran, The Blue of the Night, RTÉ Lyric fm)

“One of the country’s leading young poets“ (Brian Lynch, writer)