Irish singer-songwriter Aine Tyrrell is setting off in her “magical” bus, on another journey around Australia, touring her unique Irish-Australian sound.
Getting in touch with her traditional Irish roots and her new home in Australia, Aine combines optimistic melodies with dark lyricism in her 2015 debut album, 'Queen Of Swords'. “I have a natural tendency to play with the extremes within my music, because that's probably what I've grown accustomed to and grown up with nearly my whole life,” Aine says.
While she toys with darkness in her music, she still wants her audience to be left with a feeling of hope. “With darkness comes light, so especially when you're playing live and you're in a room of people, you don't really want to leave people in a dark hole.
"You have a moral responsibility to leave people with hope, and even if it is just within the melody or something playful in that way,” she says.
The upcoming tour aims to delve further into the music by revealing the dark truth behind it: Aine's personal experience of domestic violence. “There's the whole issue of domestic violence and those stories are very much kept quiet, because none of us, no survivors, want to go out and speak badly about the situation.
"You don't want to step on toes, or you don't want people to think you're overstepping your mark. With the small platform I have, I felt like I was doing a real disservice, not only to myself but to that conversation.
"By not saying: 'Yeah this has happened to me to but I've chosen to speak up about it, and I've chosen to take that as what I've rebuilt my life on', kind of shows the positive as well the negative,” she reveals.
With Aine's new life came the opportunity to start playing music again, after giving up her passion for “eight or nine years” while in that toxic relationship. She decided to create music and tour around the country with her children in their 1966 Bedford Freedom bus, as a “healing adventure”.
“There's nothing like road trips to sort of distract you from what you're going through. "There's also nothing like being surrounded by beautiful places, and beautiful people that inspire you to keep going.”
Despite missing her Irish home, she found familiarity in unlikely places, such as the Australian outback. “I thought, I've never been to a desert. Obviously, living in Ireland they don't come around often.
“I was completely blown away by the vastness, the stars at night and how the dirt just goes forever. I also did find the people we met along the way had a similar community feel to rural communities in Ireland.
"They're very much, 'come in here, have a cup of tea, you can use our shed to record'. With all the people I met, there was a real similarity to rural Ireland.”
Through these experiences, Aine's concoction of Australian and Irish sounds was created. “There's definitely an infiltration of the Australian landscape and the Australian music that I'd been surrounded with, inside the music.
"It gave it a more contemporary feel than the traditional album I thought we were making. Once I realised those ideas, it just became its own thing and it's lovely, because it really just represents where I am in the world right now.”
Written by Jessamy Tredinnick
Aine Tyrrell Shows
Wed 30 Nov - Black Bear Lodge (Brisbane)Wed 21 Dec - The Triffid (Brisbane)
26 Dec-1 Jan - Woodford Folk Festival (Sunshine Coast)
6-8 Jan - Cygnet Folk Festival (Tasmania)
Fri 13 Jan - Rosny Barn (Hobart)
Sat 14 Jan - Waratah Hotel (Hobart)
Fri 20 Jan - The Spotted Mallard (Melbourne)
