Aisling Urwin told David Hennessy about her latest album, The Other Place.
Harpist and songwriter Aisling Urwin recently released her second album The Other Place.
It followed previous singles Wild! and Flying Colours and was accompanied by the track Growing Growing Gone.
A harper, composer, and songwriter from Kenmare, Aisling has been immersed in world, folk, and traditional Irish music from an early age.
Aisling works across a wide spectrum of music as a solo artist, composer for film and television, session musician and teacher.
Recent projects include composition for TG4’s Cois Móire, John Spillane’s folk opera, Fíoruisce, and Clare Sands’ immersive Gormacha project.
In 2021, she launched The School of Harp, an online learning platform for harp and voice.
In 2023 she undertook creative residencies with fellow harper Niamh O’Brien at An Ionad Cultúrtha and The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, developing innovative arrangements of Traditional Irish pieces and composing new work, to be released this year.
Aisling has toured internationally for seven years with world music artist Ajeet, contributing to the Billboard-charting album Indigo Sea. She is also one half of the folk duo Woven Kin, whose debut album Hibernate (2021) explores seasonal stillness through harmony-rich song.
A sonic departure from her debut, the record is a contemporary atmos-folk exploration of the places we can feel but can’t quite reach.
A felt sense of place is an integral part of the album, with several field recordings scattered throughout.
Recorded by Aisling near her home, the album features sounds such as streams, birdsong, storms, a grandfather clock, bells and old wind-up toys.
The Other Place is a collection that reflects her evolving sound.
The Irish World chatted to Aisling about the new music.
How does it feel to be getting the music out there?
“Yeah, it’s good.
“These songs were sort of brewing for the last few years.
“The process of making the album took about three years or so, so it’s great to finally get them out there and be able to kind of detach myself a little bit from the project.”
What does the title refer to? It’s called The Other Place, do these tracks come from somewhere else or did you have to go somewhere else to create them?
“It took me ages to name the album but as I was writing it, I started to get a feeling that each of the songs were their own little worlds.
“I had a sense of them belonging to this particular place, each one little worlds you could inhabit for a while and it made me start thinking about the transportive nature of music sometimes and how it can bring us somewhere else.
“That’s where the name came from in the end.”
Let’s talk about the single, Wild! Where did that come from?
“That one took a long time to write.
“It started with a harp riff and I think the lyrics in that one came out of this place of discomfort and a longing to be somewhere else.
“For ages I just had a couple of verses and I tried to add a chorus to it and it just wasn’t feeling right so in the end, it turned out to be a chorus-less song but it has a couple of sections at the end. It feels like it’s stopped but then it goes into part two which is this tune that speeds up and up and up.
“I wanted to create the feeling of chaos in this section at the end which feels quite contrast to the first part of the song.”
You built on the mood with the video..
“Yeah, my good friend Amaia Elizaran is an amazing dancer from the Basque Country and she travelled over to Kerry here with her friend and also videographer, Renata Laszczak to make the video.
“That was shot right on the Cork/ Kerry border, literally on the line of the border up in the mountains. I think what they created is really beautiful.”
What is the message of the song, Flying Colours?
“Yeah, that song feels quite different to Wild!
“It’s actually another one that started off with a harp riff and I think it was the feeling of weightlessness and lightness and flight that inspired the theme of the song which is quite fantastical in its nature.
“It’s about your soul leaving your body and flying around in the night for a little while before coming back before the morning.
“So quite a different song in its theme and also in the instrumentation to Wild!
“The instrumentation in Flying Colours feels a little bit orchestral at times, a little bit classical with the sort of orchestral style percussion from Davey Ryan and then also Kate Liddell is playing strings. We made a kind of orchestra out of her strings.
“We layered many, many layers for this particular track so it gives quite a different sound to the first single.”
Someone else who features on the album is Liam Ó Maonlaí who plays bodhrán on Wild!
“He’s a suitable man to be on a track called Wild!
“He actually recorded that at my friend’s house up the road, Siobhan Moore.
“They both played bodhrán at the same time.
“It was like duelling bodhráns.
“That was the last instrument actually to be added to that track and definitely added an extra element of wildness to the whole thing, I think.”
How did his participation come about? Have you played with him before?
“I have played with him before.
“He actually comes to Kenmare, where I live, semi-frequently for gigs or just travelling around so yeah, I’ve played with him before.
“And he’s friends with Siobhan Moore as well who recorded them playing.
“I think he was coming down to visit for a few days at the time so it was kind of an off the cuff thing.
“There’s a lead track which is the last track on the album called Growing Growing Gone and this piece feels quite different to the other pieces and in terms of place, the theme running throughout the album.
“This is the moment where, in my mind, we’ve arrived back in the garden and the birds are tweeting so there’s also more organic instrumentation in this piece, and more pared back.
“And also I feel the lyrics are a little bit more down to earth as well.
“They’re less kind of fantastical and dreamy.
“They’re more speaking about everyday things like putting the washing out.”
That’s the big concept of the album the everyday and the fantastical beside one another..
“Yeah, that was something I wanted to explore in the album.
“John Moriarty has explored it as well: Finding the luminous in the everyday, finding the magic in small, everyday things.
“I think this track is a good depiction of that theme talking about everyday things like waking up in the morning and looking out and seeing what the weather is like and then a line being repeated throughout the song ‘we’re growing growing gone’ which feels a bit more big and existential.”
You also incorporate some sounds of nature..
“Yeah, I live in a rural area and nature is a big, big inspiration.
“Looking outside and seeing the mountains and the forests and the sea every day is hugely inspiring and I don’t know if I could write without it.
“I tried to incorporate the actual sounds of nature into the album as well.
“Not everything was recorded in the studio.
“I also went around with a recorder and recorded the sound of the stream and the birds and a storm.
“I guess in a way that might feel a little bit soundscapey or cinematic.
“For the Flying Colours Song I roped my dad in for an afternoon and went up to his house and recorded some sounds of things up there like an old wind up motorbike toy that he had when he was a smallie.
“We recorded the sound of that being wound up and running along the floor and then also there’s the sounds of a grandfather clock ticking in the house and the cogs turning which is actually his dad’s clock so my grandfather’s grandfather clock, and then other sounds like chimes and bells as well.
“I think by adding these sounds into the various tracks, it was making them feel more like their own distinct little worlds which was part of the idea of the whole album.”
Was the experience of making this album different from the first album, more immersive perhaps?
“Yeah, it was quite a different experience making this album versus my last solo album which was actually back in 2018 now.
“The last solo album was a collection of trad tunes and folk songs that I had made versions of and this album is all original songs so they do feel a lot closer to me, a lot more personal.
“I wanted to try something quite different with the sound as well in terms of the instrumentation.
“I wanted it to feel a lot bigger and stronger and I guess a little bit more experimental as well.
“I think it feels quite different recording something you’ve written yourself versus something someone else has written or an old trad piece.”
Does it feel completely different it being your project and not being part of a duo or larger group?
“It is.
“I guess you feel a bit more exposed because it’s your name.
“I’m in a duo project as well called Woven Kin which for the last album I wrote half the songs but when there’s a band name, I think you feel a bit more of a group, you feel like the focus is less on you.
“Even though still a lot of the songs are coming from you and you’re playing on all the tracks, there’s a different feeling alright when it’s your own personal project.
“But it’s good.
“I’ve really liked with this project being able to do exactly what I wanted to do creatively. Go mad.”
Was it always music for you and how did you get introduced to the harp?
“Well, my parents played trad so I grew up listening to trad in the house and other kinds of folk music as well.
“They really wanted me to learn an instrument when I was a wee one and I chose the harp.
“Apparently I saw someone playing it on The Late Late Show and I was like, ‘Can I learn that one?’
“So they very kindly brought me to lessons because there aren’t that many harp teachers around, there are not many harp teachers around this part of the country anyway so they used to have to bring me up to Castleconnell in Limerick, it was a good drive from here and it was a longer and windier drive back then when I was just starting to learn.
“I guess I can thank- I don’t even know who it was- that woman on the Late Late Show when I was nine for learning the harp.”
Harp is not an obvious instrument and in that way, it must really call to some people like yourself..
“Totally, yeah.
“It’s a fairly small community.
“There are more people starting to learn now and more people playing and playing in different kinds of genres as well.
“But yeah, if I did a bit of detective work, I imagine I could figure out who it was judging by the year and the people who might have been on the Late Late.
“I have to figure it out because I need to thank them.”
Clannad have been known to use a harp, I wondered if artists like them and Enya have influenced you. I wouldn’t be surprised due to the ethereal sound of The Other Place..
“They would have been artists that I would have heard in the house growing up a lot so I think that sort of ethereal sound has found its way into my songwriting.
“I’m sure the music I listened to growing up was a big part of that.”
I asked about the reaction to the new album. You have got to play it live, what was that like, to see that instant reaction?
“Yeah, it was great to actually take these songs and play them in a live setting.
“It’s quite a different thing.
“I really like how when you are playing live, there’s a particular kind of feeling in the room that you can’t replicate with a recording.
“I also love being able to be flexible with songs and allow them to breathe a little bit when I’m in a live setting, take my time with certain parts of the songs and really getting to sink into the song and extend parts and improvise here and there.
“Then they end up turning into something a little bit different from the recording.
“I think that often happens actually: People record a song and then years later, it’s sort of morphed into something else not that that’s happened yet with these ones, they’re still fresh.
“It was great to actually do it live.”
Is there a highlight of all the places you have got to play?
“Oh gosh, that’s a difficult question.
“I’ve done a lot of gigging and a lot of traveling particularly over the last seven years and I’ve played in all kinds of venues from tiny pubs to big theatres to outdoor festivals.
“I love when I get the chance to play outside.
“I think there’s a particular feeling to outdoor gigs that I just absolutely love.
“I know it can be a little bit trickier sometimes getting the sound right and then, living in Ireland, there aren’t that many opportunities to play outside at all for obvious reasons. It’s just raining most of the year.
“I love any time I get to play outside.
“I played on a beach in Mexico.
“I’ve played on the side of a mountain in New Zealand.
“Gosh, lots of places and then there’s been lots of beautiful old theatres as well.
“And then, speaking more locally, you can’t beat Crowley’s bar in Kenmare, great music spot.
“It’s tiny, you can’t fit that many people in there and usually you’re pretty sardined but it’s got a lot of soul.”
You also composed for film and TV, is that helpful with the album having such a cinematic story?
“Yeah, I think so.
“I’ve always loved and appreciated film music and I think a lot of the music that I write might veer into a sort of soundscape sort of territory or be a little bit more cinematic in its nature so I think those projects have probably partly shaped the way I write.
“I guess also I don’t write many short songs.
“I like to really let things breathe and really set the scene in a song.”
The Other Place is out now.
For more information, click here.
