​RUFOUS NIGHTJAR
SONGS FOR THREE VOICES
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Rufous Nightjar is a three-part harmony trio consisting of Branwen Kavanagh, Anna Bishop and Zoé Basha. The three met in a golden wave of underground traditional and folk music in Dublin. In 2018 they travelled across Eastern Europe learning folk songs, and developed a beautiful harmonious dynamic. They came together as a trio for a one off musical collaboration called Rufous Nightjar in 2020. Branwen composed a number of a cappella songs around the themes of mythology, folklore, landscape, loss and the otherworld and invited Anna and Zoé to collaborate on arranging the songs with the intention of making an album, and, three beautiful residencies, a brass ensemble and a whole lot of recording later, “Songs for Three Voices” was created.
Rufous Nightjar had a wonderful journey in their brief collaboration, having performed on Other Voices and in the National Concert Hall, they had 2 sold out Irish Tours, were featured on Donal Dineen’s “Make me an Island” Podcast, RTE Radio 1’s Arena, and Myles O Reilly made a video for them in Kilruddery house. This album was released on the 26th of March 2024 on digital and vinyl.
TWIN HEADED WOLF
ALTARWISE
Branwen and Julie first encountered each other in the womb. They've been twins ever since. Praised as Glastonbury's "most special festival find", Twin Headed Wolf made a name for themselves in this world and the other world. Their eccentric, theatrical, ritual-imbued, folklore informed stage shows earned them a cult following in Ireland and abroad. They tread a narrow track between the beautiful, the dark and the ridiculous and their use of teapots, saws, bicycles, milk jugs, bones, dollies and decapitated French hunting horns as instruments alongside their ethereal twin-edged blood harmonies is the distinct and unique creature that is Twin Headed Wolf. They made the offering of their first and most treasured piece of work, an album called Altarwise that was first recorded in 2013 and finally finished in 2017. It was lost in time and was officially released on the 29/02/24. It is a great testament to a band that made a big splash on the folk scene of Ireland from 2011 to 2017 in their unique, experimental, theatrical and surreal expression.
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Praise for Altarwise
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"Altarwise is more than just an album; it is a profound testament to the boundless creativity and visionary spirit of Twin Headed Wolf and the unique bond shared by Branwen and Julie Kavanagh, whose symbiotic creative synergy has yielded a musical masterpiece unlike any other. " Pure M Zine
"This album will never be constrained to a fixed time and space, just as it unashamedly refutes restraining into any specific musical genre. Perhaps it’s too wild, raw and magical for such temporal constraints.
This is the most interesting album I’ve heard in 2024: Too free to be caged, too feral to be tamed, too magical to explain." Folk and Honey,
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"extraordinary" FATEA
BRANWEN
HUNTED AND HAUNTED
Hunted and Haunted was an album that was test driven on the streets of Paris in 2016. Branwen brought a broken heart, a collection of new songs and a puppet wearing the same costume as them to sing outside cafes and churches for a month while surviving on almost nothing.
When the songs were broken in, Branwen began working with long time collaborator and violinist extraordinaire, Nicholas Cooper and the amazing Deirdre O'Leary on Bass Clarinet.
The album is a delicate and intricate conversation between the three musicians who took enormous care with the arrangements in order to transport the listener into the worlds of the songs, a practice which Branwen has kept up across all of their albums. The world this album is emerging from is the last deep, dim breath of twilight in early summer, the smell of smoke and moss and cold water and the first hint of stars in a clear sky. All of the songs are inspired by different folklore and origin stories and were vastly written in the late hours in the art college studio and in the squats of Dublin 7.
The album was recorded with Simon O'Reilly in the West of Ireland and was released initially in New Orleans in April 2019 and in Dublin in May 2019 and was toured across Ireland, Scotland and Europe.
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Praise for Hunted and Haunted
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"They wove an acoustic web of enchantment, singing deep mysterious songs that breached the veil between this world and the Great Unseen. The audience was left in a daze of delight."
Kilkenny Observer