Now that we’re past the July 4 holiday here in the states and engulfed deep down in the back end of summer, it’s fairly easy to find the next major holiday on the calendar. That arrives October 31, in part due to Halloween and all her revelry, but also for the release of Sister Ghost’s forthcoming new album Beyond The Water.
The project of Northern Irish artist Shannon Delores O’Neill, Sister Ghost primes the excitement over the Third Bar Records release with the unveiling of electric single “Dark Matter,” which hit the streams last week (July 3). Recorded in Los Angeles with the producer Brad Wood (Liz Phair’s Exile on Guyville, Veruca Salt’s American Thighs), “Dark Matter” sets a dynamic tone for what’s to come, both with its urgent, arena-sized ’80s alternative pop-rock sound that calls back to Simple Minds and Tears For Fears, but also by providing a snapshot of O’Neill’s world view as a queer woman from a small village in rural Ireland now living in Southern California.
“I wrote the lyrics for this song after being moved to tears watching the French film Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Céline Sciamma, as I really felt it echoed some of my own queer experiences,” O’Neill says. “That’s also why there’s some French in the bridge section of the song, which translates to ‘my love, she glows in the fire’.”
Both the title of “Dark Matter” and its layered lyrical depth speak to a greater issue for Sister Ghost and others.
“The chorus phrase ‘dark matter, pour over me’ just came to me out of nowhere,” she adds, “and when I looked into it I found that dark matter in science is defined as being unseen or invisible, so then it made sense to me to use it as a device to convey the alienation and sadness queer people feel when they have to hide their true selves or walk away from relationships due to queer-specific circumstance.”