Last July, we had the joy of premiering ‘Cloudy Dreams,’ a three-minute gem by Arklow’s Aoibhín Redmond aka NIMF. Representing her experiences as an autistic musician, and the need to indulge in her imagination, it married acoustic motifs with found sound and homespun electronica, as well as influences including Kero Kero Bonito. Four months on from that luminous introduction, the sugar-spun DIY pop of ‘Space’ plumbed prismatic new depths. Delving into what Redmond referred to as “the beautiful worlds within our own minds,” which open up “endless possibilities when overwhelmed by the day-to-day,” it was a dreamscape that hit like sanctuary.
That port in the storm-like energy feels like a constant in NIMF’s output to date. Unfurling in myriad directions, it doubles up as an invitation to drop out of the everyday in favour of tapping the wellspring of one’s mind. If it peals on ‘Space’ and ‘Cloudy Dreams,’ it resounds on ‘A Ballad for Looking into Time’. Released in May and self-described as a debut exploration into storytelling, it’s a ten-minute tale certain to rank high as one of our tracks of year. Beginning as an original Irish folk ballad, wedding sublime vocals and skeletal lute with crackling campfire ambience, it steadily warps into what NIMF dubbed an “unworldly sirenoscape, devoid of humanity.” And how: Equal parts widescreen and wonderfully woven, it is a rare phantasmic feat.
The piece is the first to be unveiled from NIMF’s new project, The Oneiricological Sireonscape. Beholden, in part, to “weird fiction, [Irish folklore journal] Béaloideas, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson and the theoretical writings of Genesis P-Orridge, ætherphone, retrogressive sample use, and electroacoustic soundscapes,” it will see the Wicklow artist continue to untangle the uncanny though music and audio-visual forms – first via her master’s thesis at Trinity College in Music and Media Technology, where an audio-visual work will be presented in the graduate exhibition at The Science Gallery in Dublin, as well as an EP earmarked for the start of next year. Paired with the fact Redmond was recently selected for Keychange 2022, as an “artist and future leader in the music industry,” it’s safe to suspect the very best is yet to come. Brian Coney
Originally featured in issue 3 of The Thin Air Magazine
Photo by Harry Rich
