CIARÁN OFFERS ANOTHER GLIMPSE INTO 'RÓISÍN' WITH 'GALVARINO'
Image: Ashlan.
There’s something fitting about Irish multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ciarán naming his debut solo album Róisín. Meaning “little rose” in Irish and once intended to be his middle name, the title carries a sense of identity, heritage and reclamation; all ideas that sit at the heart of his first full-length release since his days as Bearface in BROCKHAMPTON.
Due November 6 via Ninja Tune, Róisín is set to arrive as a distinctly personal reset. Rather than attempting to recreate the world he left behind, Ciarán uses the album as an opportunity to push in almost every direction at once. Guitars, distorted vocals, dreamy harmonies and harsher textures collide across 13 tracks, creating something deliberately difficult to categorise.
That unpredictability is already evident in Galvarino, the album’s latest preview. Beginning with little more than voice and rhythm guitar, the five-minute track gradually gathers momentum before bass and percussion give it a much heavier pulse. Ciarán's vocal becomes increasingly forceful as the arrangement thickens, only for the song to retreat again towards its conclusion. It feels less like a conventional single than a condensed introduction to the album’s restless character. The track’s self-directed visual accompaniment adds another layer to that world, reinforcing the sense that Ciarán is approaching this project on his own terms.
That independence is perhaps the defining feature of Róisín. After BROCKHAMPTON disbanded in 2022, Ciarán returned to New York with the rare opportunity to make music without a predefined role to fill. Instead of rushing to capitalise on his return, he spent time figuring out what he actually wanted the next chapter to sound like.
“I’d rather wait and take my time than put something out because of any perceived pressures from anyone else,” he explains. That patience appears to have paid off. Róisín doesn't present Ciarán as an artist trying to prove what he can do. It sounds more like someone finally free to follow his instincts, even when those instincts pull the music somewhere strange, abrasive or unexpectedly beautiful.
His decision to embrace the name Ciarán carries the same weight. “People learn how to pronounce difficult names all the time. Irish names are beautiful.” he says. After years spent behind a moniker, Róisín feels like an introduction to the person underneath it. It is experimental without being detached, intimate without becoming overly polished, and most importantly, unconcerned with fitting neatly into whatever came before.
"I really and truly appreciate every single person who has remained excited at even the prospect of me coming back and releasing something” Ciarán says. “It's been an extensive and intentional process and I hope you can enjoy the music (and the process of that which it comes) with an open heart and I hope it can become something that you could see yourself living with for a long while." On the evidence of Galvarino, that process has produced something worth waiting for.
Róisín is out November 6.
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