Gemma Hayes releases new single 'Hardwired'
NEW ALBUM ‘BLIND FAITH’ OUT IN SEPTEMBER
May 10, 2024: Gemma Hayes has today released new single ‘Hardwired’, the latest single to be taken from the Irish musician’s long-awaited sixth studio album ‘Blind Faith’ which drops in September. Last week, Hayes announced the UK dates of her ‘Blind Faith’ 2024 World Tour, including a show at London’s Union Chapel on September 28.
"I wanted to take a musical freeze frame of the world post-Covid,” explains Gemma of Hardwired. A place where, according to statistics, we were more captured by our devices and social media content than ever before. We were sitting ducks for bad actors to misinform us in a way that felt like real information. A place where people became more polarised by whether they identified with left or right, pro or anti etc. The lack of nuance in these areas seemed dangerous. I felt like unplugging the world, waiting ten seconds, and plugging it back in again. And thus was born ‘Hardwired’."
‘Hardwired’ is the third track to be lifted from ‘Blind Faith’, Hayes’ first new studio album since 2015, following ‘High & Low’ and ‘Feed The Flames’, which features Lisa Hannigan on backing vocals.
Gemma Hayes’ debut album Night On My Side was released in 2002, for which she won Best Female Artist at the Hot Press Awards and a Mercury Prize nomination. Since then, she has released four critically acclaimed studio albums and a limited-edition live album. The Business Post recently praised Gemma as “a songwriter whose work pivots between serious life experiences and an indie folk/rock style influenced as much by Nick Drake as My Bloody Valentine.”
Hayes’ music is constantly in demand for film and TV placements, and she recently contributed to the soundtrack of the film adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s Greyhound of a Girl. Her version of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, recorded for the US TV series Pretty Little Liars, now has over 24 million streams on Spotify alone.
Over the last year, Gemma has been busy touring, bringing her stirring live show to crowds that span generations. Gemma spent Autumn playing to audiences solo as well as with fellow living legends Lisa Hannigan and Paul Noonan. Last year she sold-out London’s Omeara and Dublin’s Whelan’s as part of a UK and Ireland tour.
Recent TV appearances have included a performance as part of the renowned Fanning at Whelans on Virgin Media Two (view her performance of ‘High & Low’ here) and TradFest: The Fingal Sessions hosted by Fiachna Ó Braonáin for RTÉ / PBS / EBU (view here) Her collaborative show for Other Voices Anam, filmed at Cahir Castle with Lisa Hannigan and Paul Noonan, was live streamed worldwide on 18 May and aired on RTÉ 2 last June (view here). Gemma performed John Prine’s ‘Summer’s End’ with Jack O’Rourke and Wallis Bird on The Tommy Tiernan Show last season (view here).
Gemma is currently touring across Ireland, with shows in Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, Galway, Donegal, Dublin and Dundalk and will be the special guest of Damien Dempsey on the 19th of July at his Summer outdoor show at The Iveagh Gardens in Dublin.
Blind Faith, the new album from Gemma Hayes, will be released in September 2024. Date TBC.
GEMMA HAYES ‘BLIND FAITH’ UK TOUR - Tickets on sale now
Weds September 25 LIVERPOOL Philharmonic Music Room - Tickets
Thurs September 26 BRISTOL Strange Brew – Tickets
Sat September 28 LONDON Union Chapel – Tickets
Sun September 29 LEEDS Old Woollen - Tickets
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