Talos sings on in new collaborative album
A collaborative new album featuring late Cork musician Eoin French, AKA Talos, has been announced to release in the summer, with a stunning new single now available.
Known for his exquisite song-writing and falsetto vocals, Talos passed away in August 2024 following a short battle with cancer.
Coming out on 11 July, new album, ‘A Dawning’, from Talos and Icelandic composer and producer Ólafur Arnalds, is a meditation on friendship, loss, and experimentation. It was finished by Arnalds following Talos’ death.
The album’s second single, ‘Signs’, showcases Talos’ voice in its most instinctive form. Anchored in delicate textures and electronic flourishes, the track captures the early stages of their creative journey, morphing and evolving, before direction had been defined, but when the emotional resonance was already undeniable.
Speaking on the new single, Arnalds says that, as the first song the pair wrote together after meeting, ‘Signs’ feels like a curious meeting of creative souls.
He says: “It’s filled with carefree experimentation and exploration.
“It was only shortly after we became friends, and we were rather decisively paired together by our friend Mary Hickson at her music residency in Cork. She seemed very sure that we would get along musically. She was right, of course,” says Arnalds.
The album process began in 2023 at Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival in Cork where both Talos and Arnalds were resident artists. They quickly formed a close bond, working in Arnalds’ Reykjavík studio and later in French’s home in West Cork. When French fell seriously ill during a trip to Iceland, the project deepened in meaning and urgency.
Arnalds continues: “It was the start of an incredible, inspiring, heartbreaking but heartfelt journey that took us places we could never have imagined in our wildest dreams.
“So, it feels appropriate that it comes out as we announce this album that became the fruit of that journey,” he adds.
‘Signs’ follows the album’s first single, ‘We Didn’t Know We Were Ready’, featuring Niamh Regan, Ye Vagabonds, and a choir of friends. The track received a powerful televised debut in January on RTÉ’s 'The Tommy Tiernan Show'.
A special one-off concert remembering Talos and featuring a number of his friends and collaborators will take place in the Cork Opera House on 11 September as part of this year’s Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival. Tickets for the show go on general sale tomorrow, Friday 30 May at 10am.
“We made this album together. Even after, while I was there working on some arrangements, I never felt like I was truly alone. Near the end, where we were saying how grateful we were to have met each other, he told me, ‘You know, I’m still gonna be there’,” concludes Arnalds.
‘A Dawning’ is released on 11 July.