One to watch: Rachael Lavelle

The Dubliner, who still works part-time as a funeral singer, has a fine line in slow-burning songs of urban isolation

Rachael Lavelle’s debut album, Big Dreams, arrived last November. With dusky vocals gliding over undulating electronics and doleful, ruminative woodwind – the clarinet is particularly striking – it’s perhaps unsurprising to learn that she still works part-time as a funeral singer in her home town of Dublin.

Lavelle’s lyrics consider the strange world of digital algorithms and online optimisation. Wry lines such as My Simple Pleasures’s “Spotted, male, liberal, spiritual, Sagittarius” nod to the mundanity of dating apps. Gratitude explores the anxiety of wasting time online. On the surface it’s a wintry, cosy record, but Big Dreams is disarming and layered; it was recently shortlisted for Ireland’s Choice Music prize.

Big Dreams is out now on Rest Energy. Rachael Lavelle plays Gullivers, Manchester (11 February), the Waiting Room, London (13 February) and in Imagining Ireland at the National Concert Hall, Dublin (3 March) and Barbican, London (4 March)