Indie folk group Norabelle is back with their beautiful and soul-stirring new single, “I Am Not a Talker,” a haunting meditation on loss, reflection, and the things that go unsaid. They’ve shared the track, previewing their upcoming album, “The Mountain Blinks,” due for release on 11 April 2025.
From its first gentle notes, “I Am Not a Talker” plays like a quiet confession, with hushed melodies and a melancholy atmosphere drawing the listener into the delicate realm between sorrow and silence. Ken Clarke’s soft but loaded vocals bear the ache of someone grappling to describe loss, even as the band’s trademark blend of complex fingerpicked guitar, wraithlike piano lines, and stacked harmonies creates a soundscape that hovers like a dying memory.
On the song’s profoundly personal inspiration, Ken explains that it’s about being unable to talk about grief so long after it has happened. It’s setting it as you internalize instead of letting it change your view on life. This theme of how memory and emotion bend through time echoes throughout “The Mountain Blinks,” rendering “I Am Not a Talker” an appropriate prelude to the album’s consideration of nostalgia, loss, and the soft reverberations of history.
Its accompanying music video, gleaned from Eoin Heaney’s movie Foreclosed, is simply a perfect display of its mournful beauty. Set at an abandoned, gradually decaying house, once a home infused with love and memories, reduced now to silent remnants, it reflects the song’s contemplation of how time dilutes even the most powerful emotions and leaves only their mere echoes.
Based in Dundalk, Norabelle, which features Ken Clarke (Guitar & Vocals), Shane O’Hanrahan (Guitar, Vocals, Piano), Stefano Rossi (Bass), and Stephen Ludlow (Drums), is a band synonymous with masterfully bespoke folk music, the songs somehow remarkably personal yet universally relatable to the wider human experience. With “I Am Not a Talker,” they have once more demonstrated their knack for turning unuttered words into something profoundly stirring.
Stream on Spotify:
Connect with Norabelle on Instagram – @wearenorabelle
