SINGING sensation and one time Kinsale resident Tori Amos gives Skibbereen the proverbial nod in Spies a track from her latest album Ocean to Ocean.
The album deals with lockdown. For her, and her family, that took place at her home in Cornwall, but Spies speaks of her dream of reuniting with others ‘here from London up to Aberdeen, ferry to Dublin, all the way down to Skibbereen.’
Her frustration with not having performed live since 2017, and the seemingly unending lockdown, led her to state on another track Swim to New York State that she would cross the Atlantic ‘for even just a day’
The songs on this, her 16th album, have been described as ‘introspective gems’ after coming out the other side of the stillness in lockdown that she found so unsettling.
It was by turning to nature – the trees in her locality – and drawing inspiration from authors who write powerfully about nature that Tori found a reconnection, a reconnection that led her, figuratively at least, back to her old stomping ground in West Cork.
Like her debut album Little Earthquake, which was released in 1992, this singer songwriter is famous for turning her emotional turmoil into the sweetest and most haunting of sounds. And hearing Skibbereen referenced by a much loved singer makes it sound all the sweeter.
