With her long-awaited debut album ‘Beyond The Water’ arriving at the end of October, Irish artist Sister Ghost has returned once again to deliver the playful new video for her latest offering “I Bite Back”.
Filmed in Ojai, California with director Alice Black earlier this year, the new visuals for “I Bite Back” see her lean heavily into the Halloween spirit her new record has been embracing. Featuring a ghoulish backing band and notable references to some spooky moments in pop culture, Sister Ghost is really looking to bring out the fun with this new video.
Adding about the visuals, she said, “The video for I Bite Back was shot in Ojai, California in June/July 2024. It was a collaborative project between myself, Alice Black (the video director and also live bassist for Sister Ghost) and the film and music pupils at the summer camp I”ve taught at since 2018 – Amplify Arts Project, CA.
“I was so thrilled to hear that the kids really liked I Bite Back and that they wanted to be involved in making the music video for it! Together we set about filming a really fun tongue-in-cheek video with references to the likes of Scooby Doo, The Craft and Nosferatu. Ghoulish fingers were fashioned out of paper, bedsheets and sunglasses were gathered and a pentagram was taped to the theatre stage floor. All in a day’s work for film class!
“It was a pleasure to make something with many of my friends making cameos and I’m super proud of what the kids helped us to produce for I Bite Back!”
Sister Ghost has also announced her plans for a special launch show at the world famous Derry Halloween Festival that very same night to celebrate the release of her debut LP. Taking place at Derrys Nerve Centre on October 31st, Sister Ghost will take to the stage as part of a one-off headline performance, bringing her newest material to eager fans live for the very first time.
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Recorded in Los Angeles in summer of 2022 with the producer Brad Wood (known for his work on Liz Phair’s ‘Exile on Guyville’ and Veruca Salt’s ‘American Thighs’), ‘Beyond The Water’ is the culmination of years of toil and grit across the underground scene in recent years. The record also features Jeff Friedl on drums, who has also played with A Perfect Circle and is currently the drummer with DEVO. Highlighted by its stellar new offering “Dark Matter”, her latest material offers a new era within her sound, one focusing on her progressive songwriting and empowering lyricism throughout.
‘Beyond The Water’ is an amalgam of sorts, a portrait of Sister Ghost’s 20s as a queer woman from a tiny village in rural Ireland, and her experiences both near and far beyond the waters of home.
Derry based artist Shannon Delores O’Neill is Sister Ghost. With a background playing in bands from the age of 12, O’Neill saw Sister Ghost as an opportunity to do things her way for the first time. She began writing and demoing in her attic – singing and playing everything herself on an 8-track recorder.
Playing noisy, spectral art-rock with a pop & literary heart, Sister Ghost marshals a diverse set of influences in a singular way -from the ‘Seattle sound’ to the likes of Sonic Youth, Veruca Salt, Patti Smith and Kate Bush. Sister Ghost built a reputation as one of Northern Ireland’s most rousing new rock bands, winning Best Live Act at the NI Music Prize in 2019. O’Neill has also been recognised for mentoring and encouraging other female and gender expansive musicians to perform in the Northern Irish scene, having set up the Girls Rock! NI chapter in 2016.
Her lyrics are a mixture of highs and lows, of the lessons life shoves in our face and what we do with that. This album should take you on a little tour, with love, heartbreak, death, but mostly growth and resilience. Tinged with wistfulness and nostalgia at points but also looking forward. Of frustration and pain, to wonder, and the wistful curiosity that travels and goes through young adulthood. Whilst also fictional elements or those from art and film that I may have identified with, for example she wrote Dark Matter after being moved by watching the french film Portrait of a Lady on Fire as it echoes some of her own queer experiences.
Whilst one of the songs (album closer ‘Scent’) was written 10 years ago, most were written in the dusty attic of her childhood home in rural Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown of spring 2020. She would spend those strange lockdown days writing and recording demos after long walks or cycling around the local area, soaking up inspiration drawn from the nature around her, memories and wanderlust for the travel that couldn’t be at that time, reading books, watching films and sifting through 10 years worth of notebooks and journals.
Sister Ghost has had press in The Guardian, garnered high profile support slots with the likes of We Are Scientists, Ratboys, Shellac, Pussy Riot, Fontaines DC & more, as well as airplay on KEXP, BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 1.