NCH Landmarks: Saint Sister - Where I Should End

As we approach International Women’s Day, we are pleased to announce Saint Sister, the collaboration between songwriter Morgana MacIntyre and harpist/composer Gemma Doherty, will perform “Where I Should End” in their first show together in three years. It sees the band collaborate with Crash Ensemble’s string quartet who feature heavily across the album, in a once-off intimate performance with vocals, harp, and strings. 
 
Since 2022 the duo have been focused on their solo pursuits. Doherty is working on a record for solo harp and composing for film and TV. Embarking on her journey into kaleidoscopic popstar-dom, Morgana, fresh from playing Paris Fashion Week, a live performance broadcast on BBC4 and opening for CMAT across Europe and North America, has released her anthem “I’m Not Going Anywhere”. 
 
The Irish duo’s 2021 sophomore record “Where I Should End” was met with critical acclaim, reaching Top 10 in Ireland & named ‘Best Album’ by the NI Music Prize, as well as a nomination for ‘Album of the Year’ by Choice Music Prize. Since their formation in 2014, they've toured the world many times with their mesmerising close-knit vocal harmonies and harp, and shared the stage with The National, Hozier, Keane, Lisa Hannigan, and Tori Amos.  
 
“Where I Should End" is all about trying to pin down something that can’t be held, trying to delineate yourself from the people around you, from what’s happening to you, from what you’re doing and I guess realizing that it’s all one big loop,” MacIntyre says. “I end where I begin again, and so does Gemma, and so does everybody else. We’re all just trying to exist in the same world, trying to cope, trying to dream. Sometimes not coping, sometimes not dreaming, mostly just going forward.” 
 
An incredibly hands-on project, with every track written, arranged and produced by the band, the album was recorded at The Meadow Studio, Co. Wicklow with Rian Trench and mixed in Berlin with Benedikt MacIsaac. Layering synths and drum machines with harp, strings and piano, the record opened new sonic avenues for Saint Sister following their critically acclaimed 2018 album “Shape of Silence”. The distinctive suits worn by the pair in the album artwork were specially commissioned from rising fashion designer Aideen Gaynor, who took inspiration from a collection of work housed in the National Gallery by Susan and Elizabeth Yeats, pioneers of the Irish Arts and Crafts movement at the turn of the century and sisters of renowned Irish poet W.B, and painter Jack B Yeats. 
 
The record travels from late night scenes on Dublin’s Capel Street (“Dynamite”), the softened disco of “Karaoke Song”, the cinematic grandeur of “Irish Hour” and in it’s final breath a message of hope on “Any Dreams?”— “go to weddings, go to funerals. Any dreams? Keep them fixed”—the fog lifts. “It’s quite focused and forensic in its dissection of what you’ve been clinging on to, what’s been keeping you alive,” explains MacIntyre. The song and album winds down into one big spiral, culminating in the repetition of “I just can’t keep up.” 

Presented by NCH