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‘Home Thoughts’, a new album of covers from Irish singer songwriter Karrie (O’Sullivan Holmes) made with Grammy Nominated Guitarist/Producer Jimmy Smyth (Van Morrison, Moving Hearts, Bonnie Tyler, Chaka Khan, Roger Daltrey).
The idea was to record and perform established tunes by their favourite artists: reflecting the Zeitgeist, and using only the ‘bare bones’ instrumentation, thus highlighting Karrie’s remarkable voice. The result is a timeless collection of well known songs transformed into beautiful stripped-down folk.
”At first, Jimmy and I did this as a socially distant, social media experiment,” says Karrie. “But as it took ‘legs’ of it’s own, I realised that the combination of our aesthetic, along with the reaction from people in lockdown, pretty much defined what an album is for. It’s a reflection in music of a certain time and place In our lives.” Jimmy Smyth: “During lockdown we thought it would be fun to perform songs that we love, with minimal instrumentation - just Voice, Guitar and Banjo - and put them up on Facebook as an artistic response to the despair and isolation people were experiencing. A simple Idea. With the best of intentions. It might help: It cant hurt.”
The songs were recorded remotely, with Karrie recording direct into her iPhone on her farm in Kerry and Jimmy with his guitar and banjo in his studio in Dublin. Rod Stewart’s ‘You Wear It Well’ was the start, slowed down into an almost unreognisble gentle folk song. After that, they simply chose songs they both loved, with the discussions, the recordings, the videos, all taking place in the virtual space. Cue new versions of classics by the likes of Clifford T.Ward, Rickie Lee Jones, James Taylor and Elton John.
Tracklist
- Life On Mars
- Yellow Brick Road
- Rocket Man
- Carolina In My Mind
- Here Comes The Sun
- You Wear It Well
- Home Thoughts (From Abroad)
- Promises
- God Only Knows
- Chuck E’s In Love
- God Give Me Strength
- Romeo And Juliet