Indie-folk singer and songwriter Etain (who takes her name from a mythical Celtic fairytale) is back in 2021 with her sophomore EP ‘In The Kitchen’. A beautiful offering that is embellished with ambient vocals and vibrating acoustic accompaniments.
This EP represents a new chapter for Étáin’s career and reflects her growth as an artist since the release of the Sacred Renditions EP. It draws on her Irish traditional roots, reworking the use of traditional instruments into the contemporary indie folk genre.
Étáin began writing at an early age, inspired by her childhood spent by the Lake Isle of Innisfree. She quickly developed a distinctive songwriting style that delivers cinematic imagery in an intimate and conversational tone. Étáin’s ethereal vocal melodies, interwoven with mystical guitar sounds, ground her work in the place from which she hails while maintaining a universal and international appeal.
“Though I didn’t write the songs on In the Kitchen with this in mind; looking at them now, they capture my search for belonging – for a home – in the people and places I encountered in my early twenties. Over the past few years, my songwriting has changed; it has become more vulnerable as I’ve tried to detangle my identity through my songs.
Some of them made their way onto In the Kitchen, and when I step back from it and listen to it now, I can see my own coming of age over the course of the record.” – Étáin
Étáin has worked in recording spaces such as Westland Studios where the likes of Bob Dylan, U2 and The Cure have recorded and played major festivals and venues across the UK and Ireland including Electric Picnic (Laois), Sea Sessions (Donegal), The Cavern Club (Liverpool), The National Concert Hall (Dublin) and Whelans (Dublin). Étáin has previously opened for Áine Cahill, R.S.A.G., Naoise Roo, The Coronas, Daithí, Wyvern Lingo, and Moya Brennan of Clannad.
In 2016 Étáin was awarded the Young Songwriter’s Award for her song Take It Again which contemplates the vulnerability we experience in romantic relationships when we find ourselves in the power of another. The track was later included on her award-winning debut EP, Sacred Renditions, which was released in 2017. Étáin wrote, arranged, and performed every track on the EP. She also used the opportunity to make her debut as a producer, producing and mixing the EP in its entirety. In the same year, Étáin won the Sea Sessions Unsigned Competition and the Bluestacks Songwriting Competition. She was also nominated for Pure M’s Best Female (Solo Artist) 2017. In 2018, Étáin was shortlisted for 2FM’s Play the Picnic Competition and in 2019 was the first solo artist to be chosen as a finalist in Trinity College Dublin’s Battle of the Bands.
At the beginning of 2021, she was commissioned to compose, arrange, and perform the theme music for the official Her International Film Festival podcast. She has also worked on a number of collaborative projects across multiple genres with artists such as, Gemma Cox, and Mabel Chah – the last of whom she has worked with on a bilingual project which is in Bikom and in Irish and takes musical inspiration from both of these traditions.
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