Dermot Kennedy announces second album and unveils new single – listen
'Sonder' is out on September 23. Listen to new track 'Dreamer' now.
By Joe Goggins
Dermot Kennedy has announced details of his second album, and shared the video for the first single – you can see it below.
The Irish singer-songwriter will release ‘Sonder’ on September 23, and has prefaced it with ‘Dreamer’, the second single from the album, following as it does last month’s ‘Something to Someone’. His first record, ‘Without Fear’, sold over a million copies and went to number one in the UK. The title of this follow-up is apparently a word that encapsulates “the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own”, something that Kennedy felt deeply when writing the record.
The meaning behind ‘Sonder’ has resonated with me so much for years,” he said in a statement around the announcement of the record. “I exist in an industry where we’re encouraged to constantly only think about ourselves and I find that exhausting and uninspiring. I want to learn about you. Let us share all of our triumphs, all of our troubles. Let this music belong to all of us, to find our own stories and our own solace within it.” Over on his Twitter account, meanwhile, Kennedy went on to reaffirm the profundity of ‘sonder’, saying: “don’t think I’ve ever related to a word more.”
New track ‘Dreamer’ is a gentle, piano-led tune that perhaps marks a more intimate change in direction for Kennedy, not least in terms of his recent endeavours; he has just wrapped up a massive tour of his native Ireland, playing his biggest venues to date, and is now off to North America to open for Shawn Mendes at arenas across the region during August. He’ll then return to the Emerald Isle for a massive headline slot at Electric Picnic festival in early September, with a crowd of 70,000 in prospect.
No track listing has yet been announced for ‘Sonder’, although more singles are expected to follow between now and the 23rd. It is highly likely to represent another streaming success for Kennedy, who has racked up over four billion streams across major singles like ‘Outnumbered’, ‘Power Over Me’ and ‘Giants’.