Cailín [CD]

Kate Nash - Cailín [CD]

Eleven years in the making, Kate Nash's sixth studio album Cailín is a love letter to her Irish heritage. Produced by KoOoLkOjAk and recorded on the west coast of Ireland at Stiúideo Cuan, under the watchful eye of pioneering trad musician Charlie Lennon, Cailín is a raw, raucous album combining traditional Irish sounds with punk energy, nods to hip hop production and Nash's knack for a killer hook.

"This was my first music," says Nash, who grew up in an Irish community in North Harrow, where she attended a Catholic school. When visiting her mother's "loving, vibrant Irish family" in Ireland every summer, she found that music infused the fabric of life in a way that felt natural and instinctive.

Marrying punk protest songs with a joyful celebration of trad music, Cailín explores themes of colonialism, inequality, religion, internalised shame and forgiveness and family, drawing on the rich texture of Irish folklore and mythology. The tradition of strong Irish women is at the heart of the record, from the young girls celebrated on the title track "Cailín," to the resourceful single mother navigating the housing crisis in "Póg Mo Thóin," to Nash's grandmother, memorialised in the poignant yet joyful "Irish Saints."

Track Listing:

I Guess I Never Learnt A Thing
Cailín
Freedom of Me
Famine
Spilt Milk
Wild Atlantic Way
Crying
Irish Saints
Póg Mo Thóin
Lady Gregory
Pay Up
Christmas Eve