When we last heard from the Irish art-rock poet Sinead O’Brien, it was with two excellent 2021 singles: “Kid Stuff” and “Girlkind.” Turns out the latter was setting the stage for O’Brien’s long-awaited debut album. It’s called Time Bend And Break The Bower, and it’s out in June.

Time Bend finds O’Brien continuing her collaboration with producer Dan Carey. Here’s what she had to say about the album:

The story of the album is built up in layers; one song giving context to the next. I thought about becoming undressed; testing my ideas, my voice. Working myself out across themes of identity, curiosity, creative process. Experimenting with the form and shape of language, using tone and delivery to get to the immediate centre of what I am saying. The record opens and closes with poems, these tracks have a really clear direction — a form which is set apart from the “songs.” I hold stops in different places, moving emphatically through the lyrics, changing the meaning. No punctuation — only the voice mapping out the way.

The album title Time Bend And Break The Bower, from the song “Multitudes,” came into my head and made its demands, an idea that pressed on me throughout the record. It has a very active role. The clock symbol is enlarged, it looms like a moon over my activity watching, counting me down to zero. Dripping with self-sabotage and the feeling of being chased; it pulls and pushes against the verses which talk of “Multitudes”; the things that faithfully come back — the images, the words, creativity. It is creativity itself.

Along with the announcement, O’Brien has shared a new single called “Holy Country.” Like “Kid Stuff,” it finds her expanding her sound — her typical spindly guitar and sing-speak delivery suddenly occurring over a crunching, clattering backdrop. Check it out below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Pain Is The Fashion Of The Spirit”
02 “Salt”
03 “Girlkind”
04 “End Of Days”
05 “Like Culture”
06 “The Rarest Kind”
07 “Holy Country”
08 “Spare For My Size, Me”
09 “There Are Good Times Coming”
10 “Multitudes”
11 “Go Again”

Time Bend And Break The Bower is out 6/10 via Chess Club.