Lisa Hannigan’s last record was ‘Live in Dublin’ made with experimental orchestral collective s t a r g a z e in Dublin’s National Concert Hall, and was released in May 2019. This live record followed Hannigan’s critically acclaimed third full-length studio album, ‘At Swim’ produced by Aaron Dessner.
Across it’s fourteen tracks – ‘Live In Dublin’ includes songs from Lisa’s first three albums, with the likes of ‘Ora’, ‘Lille’, ‘Fall’, ‘Little Bird’, ‘A Sail’ and ‘Undertow’. Hannigan's delicate vocals and soft-plucked guitars and mandolin are delivered against a hypnotic backdrop of sublime waltzing keys, affective string sections and minimalist percussion.
About the making of the record, Lisa said - “Sometimes working with classically trained musicians can be slightly nerve-wracking as a singer songwriter because they speak a language so beautifully fluently that I can only fumble towards,” Hannigan recalls: “In a band, so much communication is done through the shoulders, the lift of an eyebrow, the feel of a small group breathing and dancing together. It’s hard to extrapolate that out into twenty, forty, even eighty people! It can feel like a glorious ocean liner tied to a creaking rowboat.” “When we started to play though, it felt like all of s t a r g a z e had climbed aboard my rowboat. They approach a song very much as a band would, with an enthusiasm and musicality which immediately felt like home. I was overwhelmed to hear my songs in such a widescreen way, going from black and white to technicolour, and hoped we could do more.” And just like that, the idea of a live album was born : I had a notion of making a live record but wanted to do it in a slightly more unusual way.”
As well as featuring tracks in TV series’ ‘Fargo’ and ‘Legion’, Lisa also sings on the Oscar winning soundtrack to ‘Gravity’. In the past few years she found her acting voice, playing Blue Diamond in Cartoon Network’s ‘Steven Universe’ and Bronagh in Cartoon Saloon’s Oscar-nominated film ‘Song of the Sea’. Outside of her own album and soundtrack releases, Lisa has contributed vocals to The National albums ‘I Am Easy to Find’ and ‘Sleep Well Beast’ and also sang on Big Red Machine’s eponymous first album.
Over the course of her extensive career to date Lisa has appeared at festivals all over the world, and live TV appearances such as the Tonight show with Jay Leno, The Late Late show with James Corden, and The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert, the Mercury Music prize and Later with Jools Holland.
Lisa is currently working on her fourth studio album.