Three years after the release of her debut album ‘Love Madness’, nomadic singer-songwriter Marie Conniffe goes back to the very beginning with soaring ballad ‘The Door’.
The track is a wistful, beautiful ode in the vein of Irish Trad/Folk best heard in dimly lit rooms bristling with intimate conversation, with Conniffe’s lingering vocal harmonies hearkening to O’Connor and O’Riordan.
Though it follows a full-length album, ‘The Door’ is in fact the first real track Conniffe had ever penned. Having spent her formative musical years performing the songs of her heroes, it was in 2005 that something of her own struck. She had an encounter at the Woodstock Open Mic in Itaewon in Seoul, South Korea on a cold Sunday night, and when she arrived home, ‘The Door’ poured out of her.
Over its long life, the demos of the song were recorded in many iterations, but none hit home for Conniffe. In the Autumn of 2019 she took it to Beardfire Studios in Dublin to flesh it out in its final form, travelling then to Bristol to have her ‘Seoul-mate’ Rebecca Cant add some friendly and heartfelt touches, recording flute for the track.
The video shot by Luke McDermott captures the essence of Conniffe’s personal and musical trajectory to date. Filmed in Dublin on a crisp March morning between Sandymount Beach and Kimchi Hophouse – a Korean bar and restaurant on Parnell St. – the visuals entwine the artist's connection to her places of travel, her home, her craft, and herself.
Finally feeling like ‘The Door’ has been done justice, Conniffe sets the song free sixteen years after its birth, Friday 9th July 2021.