Ocean-inspired LP leaves singer on crest of a wave

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

Maria Shiel’s musical odyssey has been twisting and turning since the early 2000s. From a successful stint with hip-hop/roots group Guava to extended periods producing and collaborating in the world of electronic music, it has taken a long time for her latest project to come to fruition.

Fire in the Sea!, a thirteen-track LP, sees the Galway-based singer-songwriter return to folk-music in its purest form. A West of Ireland love letter to America, it is laden with transatlantic connections in culture and sound.

Though the online release is set for Christmastime, hard copies of the album will be available from this Saturday, September 12.

Marked by a highly anticipated outdoor gig at the Galway Summer Garden, the launch night feels like the culmination of several decades’ worth of experience. Maria herself points to a level of introspection in the tracklist that trumps her previous work.

“It’s been a long journey,” she admits. “I don’t want to say it’s been twenty years because that sounds ridiculous but it sort of has in a weird way.

“I was in Galway in the early 2000s and started my first band then as a wee nipper called Guava. We were having a great time and I had put all of my eggs into that basket. We did a little tour in the states and the band broke up over there.

“The problem was emotionally I wasn’t able to handle it. I went away from Galway then and I was in Dublin for twelve years and, while I was up there, I just couldn’t get band members. I set up a little record label online and I did some electronic collaborations.

“I kind of ended up doing loads of stuff all over the world which was great but it was very headphones-y. In about 2011, I started going back into playing guitar again. I got accepted to play at a songwriting festival in Texas in 2014 and that basically opened everything up. I got the grá back again to get writing and singing on guitar… I released a mini-album called Star and then I came back from Texas and I had about eight songs that came in a very short period of time.                                                                             

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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