A love song about falling fast across an ocean opens the debut from Saltaire. The Dublin dark-folk trio have released “Aldborough Parade,” the focus track from their debut EP ‘Only Moonlight,’ which is out now. The single establishes Saltaire as a formidable new presence in the contemporary Irish folk and trad scene.
“Aldborough Parade” is a stirring original written by member Ian Kinsella about the feverishness of falling quickly, the ache of love stretched across an ocean, and the sweetness of finding home in another person and their music. It sets the tone for an EP that interlaces original work with carefully chosen folk classics.
The record moves through a rich mix of tradition and invention. A richly textured take on “Matty Groves” refracts an English folk song through Appalachian melodies, grounded by ominous folk cello, intricate guitar and bouzouki, and a pulsing bodhrán heartbeat before a climactic bouzouki-led outro from Conor Lyons. The instrumental set “Slip Jigs & Jenny’s” gathers four traditional tunes and highlights Kaitlin Cullen-Verhauz’s cello as both atmospheric foundation and lead melody player.
The EP takes its title from a line in its rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s “Lungs”: “Gather up the gold you’ve found, you fool it’s only moonlight.” The trio see something fitting in it. “Sometimes being a musician feels something like that; we try to gather gold in what we create and navigate the shifting shadows of doubt,” they say. They were drawn to the song for its bite, too, calling it painfully pertinent amid a rise in racism and anti-immigrant hate, and a reminder of Ireland’s own long history of immigration and asylum-seeking.
The EP closes with debut single “The Axe,” a contemporary take on the murder ballad inspired by the true story of the Axeman of New Orleans, who terrorised the city between 1918 and 1919. The track navigates fear, bigotry, the sensationalising of tragedy in media, and the ways collective terror can either splinter or bind a community.
Saltaire bring together three distinct voices: singer and cellist Kaitlin Cullen-Verhauz, guitarist Ian Kinsella, and bodhrán and bouzouki player Conor Lyons, all shaped by years in acclaimed Irish trad and folk bands. Cullen-Verhauz has performed with 2025 RTÉ Folk Award winners Natalie Ní Chasaide and Iarfhlaith Ó Domhnaill, Lyons is a founding member of The Bonny Men, and all three feature in Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin’s live band. Recorded at Black Mountain Studios in Co. Louth with co-producer Alex Borwick and mastered by Seán Mac Erlaine, ‘Only Moonlight’ arrives as a defining calling card.
‘Only Moonlight’ EP Tracklisting:
01 Aldborough Parade
02 Matty Groves
03 Slip Jigs & Jenny’s
04 Lungs
05 The Axe