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Plastic Skeletons
For the last few years, belfast’s Naomi Hamilton, AKA Jealous Of The Birds, has been toeing the line between the confusion and confidence of youth, developing a vocabulary as a songwriter rich in empathy and generosity.
Though she took an ardent interest in poetry and playing guitar at an early age, Hamilton didn’t begin writing original music until late 2014. “I’d just started university and it coincided with a lifestyle and emotional shift that was a catalyst for writing music,” she explains.
Recorded while studying english and creative writing at queen’s university, Belfast, her 2015 debut EP capricorn saw Hamilton developing a style equal parts autobiographical and whimsical. a collection of hushed confessionals, Hamilton’s love of the literary greats shines throughout – as comfortable in a tongue-twisting metaphor as she is in naked honesty.
While Hamilton began playing shows in support of the EP and generating an early buzz in the nurturing northern Irish music scene – “a safe, insular platform,” as she puts it – word of her music would come to reach declan legge: a northern Irish producer who had previously worked alongside soak and Ciaran Lavery. He recalls, “I remembered her music immediately. I recognised something in what Naomi was doing that made me realise i have to do this. It was one of those moments.”
After a short trial period of getting to know one another, the pair set down to writing and recording what would become Jealous Of The Birds’ debut album, 2016’s Parma Violets, in Declan’s big space studio: it was a labour of love from the pair that was DIY in the truest sense. "