Like any breakup album, Ailbhe Reddy’s Kiss Big (Don Giovanni) is messy and uncomfortable. Written at various junctures in New York, the Midwest, London and Reddy’s native Dublin, the nine tracks on Kiss Big find their beauty in tiny moments of catharsis. With soft-spoken candor, they trace the seemingly the endless cycle of love and loss with a sometimes-uneasy balance of atmospheric indie rock and intimate folk.
Reddy co-produced her third LP with Tommy McLaughlin (Villagers, SOAK) at his Attica Audio Recording in Donegal. The album’s bracing cover art was shot and designed by Su Müstecaplıoğlu and Sirin Tunali.
“The image captures the messy beauty at the heart of Kiss Big—real couples kissing, unposed, imperfect, human,” says Reddy. “It’s about the intimacy that remains even when everything else unravels.”
Reddy elaborates on each Kiss Big track below.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Align”
“A quiet reckoning. The sound of distance setting in. It’s about the rare peace that comes when you can finally wish someone well, even as you know you’ll only ever see their life from a distance.”
2) “That Girl”
“‘This is about the tension between who we are and who we become for someone else. To me, it feels lived-in, messy and alive, fusing diaristic lyrics with urgent synths and hammering drums. I drew influence from Julia Jacklin, Arcade Fire, Mitski and the novel Fleishman Is In Trouble.”
3) “So Quickly, Baby”
“The meltdown track. The push/pull between wanting to be the bigger person while internally screaming, ‘How are you already moved on?’”
4) “Untangling”
“This is about the hollow kind of freedom that follows a breakup. The way moving on can feel more like being dropped into deep water and unable to swim.”
5) “Graceful Swimmer”
“A love letter to all the tiny details you notice about someone—that take on an even greater meaning once it’s over.”
6) “Dead Arm”
“Pure rejection … the kind that’s so confusing you wish the person would just say or do something nasty so you can finally cut the cord.”
7) “Gorgeous Thing”
“This one wrestles with guilt, detachment and the fear of never loving again. It details a relationship where you hurt someone else because you’re not ready to move on yet.”
8) “Kiss Big”
“The song that gave the album its name—and sense of hope. Written partly as a joke, partly during a phone call in Indiana surrounded by Jesus billboards while on tour, it became a kind of lullaby about love’s resilience and optimism. The outro, inspired by the ‘Touching Love’ monologue from Sarah Kane’s play Crave, describes the desire to move forward and make plans with someone. Where the beginning of the album asks, ‘And what do I do now?’ the end offers, ‘Let’s do this and this and this and this.’”
9) “Crave”
“A hypnotic piece built around the ‘Touching Love’ monologue. Words by Sarah Kane, used with generous permission from her estate.”
See Ailbhe Reddy live.
