Sarah McQuaid’s lush, chocolatey voice combines with her engaging personality, “subtle mastery onstage” (Huffington Post) and “brilliant musicianship” (fRoots) on acoustic and electric guitars, piano and (occasionally) drum to create a truly immersive experience.
Produced and engineered by Martin Stansbury, The St Buryan Sessions was released in October 2021 by Sarah‘s own Shovel And A Spade label on CD and limited-edition blue vinyl double LP. The album made it onto “Best of 2021” lists on three continents and features stunning solo performances by Sarah on acoustic and electric guitars, piano and floor tom drum, her lush, distinctive vocals echoing through the soaring space.
“McQuaid’s voice, a fragile, starkly resonant alto, has always been a thing of folk-trad beauty,” wrote reviewer Kenny Berkowitz in Acoustic Guitar magazine, “but here, with ambient mics placed around the church’s interior, it takes on a new joyfulness and a deeper darkness.” Ink 19’s Bob Pomeroy called it “a starkly minimalist recording of exceptional beauty”, and Folk Radio UK described it as “a wonderful, expressive and intimate live album from a consummate performer.”
“There is an audience,” wrote Adrian Jones in Folk London, “– it’s you, and you’ve kept shtum in the back pew. It’s an intimate and changing 70 minutes, ending with the silence of this hallowed setting. Sneak out quietly. And then listen to it again!”
Videos by Cornish filmmaker Mawgan Lewis of all 15 tracks on the album can be viewed on Sarah’s YouTube channel, together with a 10-minute video introduction to Sarah featuring live and studio performances intercut with interview and behind-the-scenes footage.