Hailing from Dundalk, Ireland, Norabelle consists of Ken Clarke (Guitar & Vocals), Shane O’Hanrahan (Guitar, Vocals, and Piano), Stefano Rossi (Bass), and Stephen Ludlow (Drums). The band draws influence from artists such as Sun Kil Moon, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Sufjan Stevens. Norabelle’s debut album, Wren, was out in 2011 and earned widespread acclaim for its poetic storytelling and elegant arrangements. The Sunday Business Post described it as featuring “achingly sweet harmonies, overlaying acoustic guitars, cello and the lightest percussion, but it’s their poetic storytelling that sets their songs apart from the throng.” On the 11th April 2025, after a fourteen years hiatus, the band released their second album entitled The Mountain Blinks. Each track on The Mountain Blinks invites listeners into deeply personal narratives. From the poignant reflection on memory and mourning in She’s Not Here to the tender love song Warm Blood, the album carries a raw emotional weight.

What They Say: “This song was the first song that I wrote that references one of my kids and is written at a time when I first became a parent and started thinking again a bit more about my own parents. The lyrics have a metaphorical meaning but also a very literal meaning. Right after my mother died I wouldn’t be able to sleep as I’d be thinking about what she looked like at that point in time. Obviously, bodies decay and this was a very scary thought for a child: “How Long does it take until you’re not you?” references the physical change that would have been happening but also the change that was taking place in my family that had to now change shape“.(Ken)

“This song reflects on grief and my general inability to talk about it even after such a long period of time. I bottled it up and it started to allow it colour my view of life. The song also references how few memories that I have and even the ones that I do have I don’t fully trust as being true. “I’ve got one true image or maybe I don’t”.(Ken)
“Both the videos feature footage from the film FORECLOSED (2012) by Eoin Heaney.“(Shane)

Their Mixtape: “Thanks so much for including us in this series. It’s been lovely picking some music to share with you and the readers. We are Norabelle, a band from Dundalk, Ireland, based in Dublin. Our new album, The Mountain Blinks, came together slowly over a number of years. The songs all share a common theme around grief, memory and anxiety. It was recorded by the legend Peter Baldwin in Black Mountain Studio, up in the Cooley Mountains just outside of Dundalk, a really beautiful studio we feel privileged to be near and to have gotten to work in. We’re really proud of the album and are excited to share it with people.“

Smog – Say Valley Maker

The first time I heard this album, A River Ain’t Too Much To Love by Smog, it left a huge impression on me. And this song Say Valley Maker in particular. What really struck me was the sparseness of it. The confidence to present a song without any bells and whistles (although you could say with confidence that if you have Jim White drumming on a song then that’s all the bells and whistles you need). It made me think about what makes up a song, and that it can basically be as much or as little as you want or whatever the song demands. I also love the melody. And the lyrics. Bill Callahan seems to approach songs as a writer from lots of left of centre ways, and that really inspires me. “With the grace of a corpse, in a riptide, I let go..” I mean, what an opening line!

Sufjan Stevens – Come On! Feel The Illinoise! Part 1: The Worlds Columbian Expostion Part 2: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream

From one unique songwriter to another. This song and album blew my tiny head off when I first heard it. Everything I said about what struck me about the sparseness of Say Valley Maker, and how it made me think about songwriting, applies here but in the complete opposite direction. This song is ALL bells and whistles. The arrangements in it are incredible and so intricate and detailed. And the song is just bursting at the seams with melody and harmony. It’s so gorgeous. Sufjan Stevens as a songwriter, and the way he approaches his work, inspires me to no end. I love how bonkers the turns in his discography are.. from an electronic instrumental record based around the Chinese Zodiac to a sparse folk album based on Bible stories and his personal faith, an orchestral suite about a road in New York, an album with a 25 minute long closing song, two bumper box sets of Christmas music, a five album set of ambient electronic drones… That kind of discography is just so exciting and a guiding light to anyone doing anything creative. Follow your own path.

Al-Fajer Group – Halalalalayya

I was at an event last year in an art space and music venue in Dublin called Unit 44 (Kirkos) where Mo’min Swaitat was there to talk about his work, the Palestinian Sound Archive, under the label he founded Majazz Project. He has collected and continues to collect vintage cassettes and records of Palestinian artists in an effort to reclaim, protect and platform their voices and music from across the decades. It was a beautiful night with lots of beautiful music. He has everything from jazz to folk to spoken word and traditional music in his growing collection. This song was played on the night and it really stayed with me. Its by a Palestinian-German folk band, Al-Fajer Group, and I wanted to take the opportunity to share it here. Its gorgeous. I’ve listened to it alot lately. The band were only active in the late 1980’s and played patriotic Palestinian songs of resistance.

Grouper – Vapor Trails

This song is perfect to listen to if you are staring at water flowing in a river. Or going for a walk at dusk surrounded by bird-song. The melody it shifts into at the 4.30 mark is so beautiful. Its a melody I could listen to on repeat all day. Liz Harris, what a legend. Her songs are so quiet and patient and oozing atmosphere. The melancholy in her melodies is really arresting to me. I love how songs can create and manifest a mood in a space and her songs do that with such ease. Also I love her approach to performing on stage. She is never spotlighted, she doesn’t put herself forward but rather puts the songs forward in a sense. I don’t consider myself a very good performer and I’m not the most comfortable on stage. I really look up to her and love the approach she takes in presenting her music in a live setting.

Katie Kim – Pause

Katie Kim is another artist I look up to. She is an Irish songwriter from Waterford, currently based in Dublin. This song is one of those songs that I could listen to forever and never tire of. It has one of those melodies that stops you in your tracks. I love how music can communicate a feeling. How you can hear a particular chord progression and it sounds like a feeling. Like, it can sound joyous. Or it can sound like longing. Or it can sound nostalgic. It’s a magic thing that music can do. And melancholy in a melody is something that I’ve always been drawn to. I love a melody that holds a melancholy. And there’s a melancholy in this melody that really moves me. It’s important to recognise your own sadness when you feel it and not to run away from it. I’ve felt sad and listened to this song so many times. Its such a comfort. Its an arm around the shoulder. Enabling catharsis.

Philip Glass – Einstein On The Beach: Knee Play 3

I had to include a piece of music by Philip Glass. A friend I lived with years ago, Billy Kenrick (who is actually the photographer who graciously let us use his work for the artwork on our new album, The Mountain Blinks) gave me the Philip Glass album Solo Piano to listen to when we lived together. That album floored me. The piano playing opened my mind up completely and definitely influenced my instincts when I sit down to play. I spent awhile trying to think of what particular piece to include here. There are so many I love. I went with this Knee Play from Einstein On The Beach. I remember the first time I listened to this opera, my head couldn’t even process what I was hearing. The first Knee Play was an instant love. But then from Act 1 Scene 1 I was like “Where am I!?” It’s always exciting when you are faced with something that you have zero context for and have to try and figure it out on its terms. And then you discover new context. Music that challenges your own ideas and tastes. And expands them. It’s exhilarating. This Knee Play is exhilarating. It’s all acapella. Only vocals. The arrangements are gorgeous. I love it.

Sinead O’Connor – In This Heart

This song is.. a stunner.. the expression of pure love on it always catches my breath when I listen to it. Alot of the songs on our new album are about loss and grief. And love. And this song expresses those things so beautifully. And so straight forwardly. It’s so gentle and so strong. I also love the structure of it, how the grief and loss comes midway in the song..and the line that opens the next verse, immediately after the grief, is “there are rays on the weather“.  That is just a gorgeous expression of healing. And then the last verse is calling back out to her love, looking to the future, “I will have you with me, in my arms only“. You can say she is speaking to an afterlife here maybe? Or maybe an idea of reincarnation? I’m a sucker for the idea of a love that goes beyond death. Im not religous at all. But the idea of peoples energy continuing beyond death… maybe through multiple lives? Who knows… a love that carries through a life, beyond death and then into another life, you find each other again. I’m an old sop. It’s a lovely idea. The love expressed in this song feels powerful enough to do that.
Sinead O’Connor was a once in a generation artist. To my shame I wasn’t familiar with most of her back catalogue until after she passed. I remember vividly the way she was portrayed when I was a kid, “Ah yeah she’s talented but she’s crazy“. I’ve thought about that alot in the years since. How that narrative was used to undermine and dismiss her voice. As a way to actively not engage with the issues she raised and ignore them. And how that seeped in and informed my perception of her when I was younger. Misogyny on a mass cultural level in action. She didn’t let it effect her actions though, she continued to speak truth to power and release music on her own terms. But she had to suffer for that. It’s a rot.

Kae Tempest – Peoples Faces

This song feels more and more important as the years go on. With everything everywhere going to hell in a handbasket, this song and its message is more and more relavant. There is an amazing performance of it at Glastonbury 2017 that I would recommend anyone to check out. It’s on youtube.Their performance is just full of fire. A call to arms for collective empathy. Its very very moving. Kae Tempest is just deadly. The performance on this recorded version is alot softer, but no less powerful. It’s a beautiful beautiful song. A song with love and hope at the core. I love this song. “More empathy. Less greed. More respect.“

The Mountain Blinks is out now. Look Here for more information on Norabelle.