Kate Nash - Cailín [2LP Hazel]

Cailín is Kate Nash turning toward her Irish roots on a punk-hearted record steeped in traditional music, presented as a gatefold double LP on hazel vinyl.

Nash broke through in 2007 with Made of Bricks and has spent the years since carving out a fiercely independent path, releasing records on her own terms. Her earliest musical memories were made in Ireland, and Cailín, the Irish word for girl, finally puts that heritage at the centre of her work.

The album was recorded at Stiúideo Cuan on Ireland's west coast with trad musician Charlie Lennon and a band of players including Niamh Dunne and Lisa Canny, filling the songs with fiddle, flute, bodhrán, harp and banjo. Nash picks up the tin whistle herself.

The subjects are big ones: family, forgiveness, colonialism, religion, folklore and the lingering weight of shame. Lead single Spilt Milk was first written about abortion law in Ireland before the Eighth Amendment was repealed, and it lands with real force. Famine reworks Sinéad O'Connor's searing song, giving it new life inside this fiddle-and-bodhrán setting.

It is a bold, deeply personal left turn from an artist who has never been afraid of one, and the double vinyl gives these songs the room they deserve.