Maija Sofia is a singer and writer from rural Co. Galway but currently lives and works in Dublin. She has performed at numerous festivals across Ireland and the UK including Other Voices, Electric Picnic and the London Antifolk festival. She has played support to Joan As Police Woman, Julien Baker, Stella Donnelly, and Adrian Crowley amongst others. She has released an EP and a handful of singles, including most recently last year’s ‘Flowers’ via London imprint Trapped Animal which was named best new music by DIY Magazine. In spring 2018 her unreleased song ‘The Wife of Michael Cleary’ was covered by Katie Kim and Lankum’s Radie Peat for a one off collaborative performance in the Pepper Canister. She is currently recording her debut full length album which will be released later this year.

A Lilac Decline
A Lilac Decline is the anagrammatic musical pseudonym of visual artist Cecilia Danell. Originally from Sweden but resident in Ireland for over a decade, Danell is also a member of fellow Rusted Rail acts Cubs and Loner Deluxe. Her debut album ‘The Mountain Rages’ (Rusted Rail, 2017) came together during sessions in the spring and the wet summer of 2016, recorded via one microphone and a bunch of borrowed and found instruments, in an attic room in Galway and during impromptu sessions in a remote cabin in Norway. Whilst there were flashes of electricity on her debut album, her forthcoming second album finds A Lilac Decline going electric, Telecaster in hand. Having pretty much ditched the acoustic guitar that was so prominent on ‘The Mountain Rages’, her sophomore album is shot through with glimmering and shimmering six string serenades, fuzzy melodies and chunky riffs. A move from the buzzing city centre to the leafy outskirts of town has also had an influence on the new music. Plugged in and turned up, A Lilac Decline overcomes any conventional wisdom regarding the “difficult second album” as this upcoming release finds her exactly where she needs A Lilac Decline to be. It’s not all sturm and strum though as the signature sound of fingerpicked guitar is still present. Rural electrification has rarely sounded so sweet.