Conchúr White, a singer-songwriter hailing from County Armagh in Northern Ireland, released his debut album in January. The appropriately titled contains the signature woozy Bella Union sound but with plenty of Conchúr’s own character running through it. “It feels totally new because it’s my first album,” he says.
“I’ve been in bands before, without going through that album process, so every facet of this is novel and exciting. It’s great to have the experience.” As Conchúr mentions, before striking out as a solo artist, he was more involved in bands, so this relatively new guise is one he found himself in almost unwittingly.
“I never really thought about being a solo musician and using my name, to be honest,” he admits. “With the bands before, like Silences, I would write the music and the words and then my friends in the band would all add their parts. I do miss that camaraderie, but I think the nature of writing by myself – and initially recording by myself – meant it made sense to be solo.
“So I do miss the social aspect, but I like the flexibility, and when I go on tour the budget means it would be near impossible with a band and I would have to turn it down.” There is a certain shedding of preconceptions to his writing as a solo artist, as Conchúr explains: “There are certainly things that are liberating about [this setup]. People talk about authenticity in music and sometimes I’m not quite sure what that means, but when I write.