Winter Aid Release New Single 'Secret Sister' Ahead of Upcoming LP

San Francisco-based, Irish songwriter Shane Culloty, aka Winter Aid, has released the final single, “Secret Sister,” from this upcoming sophomore full-length album, Pull The Sky Inside, due out May 17.

The 15-song collection was produced with Larry Crane (Elliott Smith, The Decemberists) and Chuck Johnson (Daniel Bachman, Claire Rousay). Pull The Sky Inside finds Culloty stretching the extremities as to what is sonically expected from a collection of Winter Aid songs, weaving in electronic sonic strands and new percussive elements. 

Discussing the track, Culloty stated, “'Secret Sister' came together like magic, and was 95% finished for years. I just couldn’t quite nail the energy in the mix, but Larry Crane got it immediately. The lyrics are strange to me - at first I thought it was about one thing, but as it came together over a few days, I realized it was about grief, losing family members and imagining the lives they may have lived.”

Having uprooted from Dublin to San Francisco with his wife, assimilating to life in a new city and country shortly led into the pandemic and lockdown. The songs that came out of this gestation period finds Culloty fully exploring his new surroundings. It’s an urban pastoral record, full of flickering images, still lifes from once bustling streets, and a world suddenly torn in different directions. Upheaval, inequality, fear and uncertainty, all captured within the beauty of life, love and a fragile environment in need of nurture.

The title-track, “Pull The Sky Inside,” was written in the midst of the pandemic, a period of struggle in a new city, far away from family. “I would spend a lot of time watching the sun go down over San Francisco,” notes Culloty. "I was struck by the idea of pulling the sunset sky indoors to preserve it and fall asleep in it. It seemed like a good solution to the darkness I was experiencing and once I finally recorded the line and finished the song, things felt a lot easier.”

Ultimately Pull The Sky Inside captures that sense of displacement: feeling a bit unmoored and out of place, but constantly trying to explore new scenery. It's a record with one foot in Culloty’s home back in Ireland, while very much a reflection of his new surroundings, attempting to make sense of everything going on around him

Pull The Sky Inside track list:

01. Dusk

02. Secret Sister

03. Mother Jones

04. Technicolor

05. Silk

06. Interlude for Jena

07. Papercuts

08. Mammoth

09. Holy Mary

10. Inner Sunset

11. 20th and Mississippi

12. Bonfire

13. What California Knows

14. Dragging A Church Up A Hill

15. Pull The Sky Inside

Photo Credit: Andy Omvik

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