Ulster singer‑songwriter, harpist and biologist Bróna McVittie returns this autumn with Supernatural, her fourth solo album: an immersive journey into the mythic imagination of Ireland and beyond. Released to coincide with Samhain when the veil is thin, Supernatural stands at the threshold between folklore and contemporary sound art, between ancestral memory and modern storytelling.
Born in County Down, McVittie has carved out a singular space in contemporary folk music. A trained biologist and a lifelong lover of mythology, she blends traditional song with nature‑infused lyricism and experimental soundscapes – an approach The Guardian praised for its ability to “take you on its wing and give you fresh visions”.
Across her three acclaimed albums: We Are the Wildlife (2018), The Man in the Mountain (2020) and The Woman in the Moon (2022), McVittie has pioneered a form of cosmic folk, weaving harp, guitar, ethnic instrumentation and electronic textures into music that evokes birdsong, open skies and elemental forces. Her work has been championed by MOJO, Uncut, The Guardian, The Independent and BBC Radio, and she has performed at WOMAD, Celtic Connections, the National Concert Hall Dublin, Kings Place London and festivals across the UK and Ireland.
Supernatural is companion to McVittie’s illustrated folklore anthology A Way with the Fairies, a richly woven literary collection exploring Irish fairy lore alongside mythic tales from across Europe. Together, the book and album form a unified creative world in which the supernatural is not distant fantasy, but something embedded in daily life – felt in the fields, the hearth, the music, and the land itself.
Produced by Thomas Gandey, the album draws directly from the stories in A Way with the Fairies, with the track list mirroring the order of tales in the book. Each piece is a sonic reimagining of a myth, poem or folk narrative brought into the present through McVittie’s distinctive blend of traditional and electronic elements.
Featuring Spain’s Antonia Jiménez: a pioneering flamenco guitarist and author of Haeda; Ukrainian bandurist and singer Anastasiya Voytyuk (known as Bandura Girl), author of White Bird with her folk bandura; and Lithuanian vocalist and composer Jausmė, author of Brothers who showcasers her national folk instrument – the kanklės.
The album explores a worldview in which fairies, spirits and otherworldly forces were once accepted as part of the same landscape as homes, fields and family life. These are not sanitised fables but stories alive with beauty, strangeness, darkness and emotional truth. Through voice, harp, and experimental textures, McVittie invites listeners to step into these tales, linger with them, and feel their resonance in the modern world.
Supernatural is both a preservation of old lore and a deeply personal creative offering, an exploration of how myth evolves through voice, memory and reinterpretation.
Are you ready to cross the threshold?