Irish singer-songwriter Sorcha Richardson announces new album Draw The Outline, shares “Illinois Again”

The track, which follows last month’s “Grenadine”, finds the Dublin-born songwriter exploring the loneliness that comes from packed tour schedule. Richardson describes it as “a bittersweet song about connection and loneliness. It’s doing the thing you’ve always dreamed of doing, surrounded by friends, and yet still feeling an undercurrent of isolation and not fully understanding why.” She adds, “It began as an attempt to capture the dreamy vignette of a headline tour across North America, but in writing about that euphoria I kept finding a quiet sense of disconnection. This song is an attempt to hold those feelings side by side; the joy and loneliness.”

After years split between Dublin and New York, Richardson moved to West Kerry, settling into a rhythm of long walks, car journeys without headphones, and a writing process that didn't force ideas. The resulting album swaps the synth-led textures of her earlier work for acoustic guitar, woodwinds, saxophone, Hammond organ, and piano, and was produced by Chris W Ryan (Chalk, Just Mustard, New Dad).

“A lot of my previous stuff is me observing other people’s conversations, or me observing my conversations with other people,” she explains. “A lot of this album is me observing my conversations within my own head. There’s a surreal, dream-like quality to it. It moves between me here in the room with you now and then, all of the things that my brain is throwing up to me; fears, memories, imagined outcomes.”

The title addresses that looseness. “‘Draw the Outline,’ to me, is kind of an instruction to start without needing to know where you’re going,” she says.

Draw The Outline artwork

Draw The Outline tracklist

“Sea Pink Moon”
“Grenadine”
“Fake Venice”
“Illinois Again”
“Ellen Forever”
“Dog’s Best Man”
“Adam (Pacing in the Park)”
“The Orchard”
“Sunshine Season”
“The Video”