Ailbhe Reddy's been top of my list of most eagerly awaited albums for a long time – I interviewed her on the TPOE podcast two (!) years ago). But finally we have the first single from said debut record. It’s called ‘Time Difference’, and finds her singing about “anything to close the distance”, which seems apt considering everything in 2020 so far. Unsurprisingly, the track was written while on tour with Will Varley in 2018. Reddy sings: “I’m alone in Glasgow waiting for my next show, staring down at the street, hotel’s up a hundred feet, all the people beneath, and I am so lonely.” It’s a gut-punch of a verse. Reddy explains: “The lyrics are dealing with how it feels to make something work long distance while living on a very different schedule to my girlfriend back home. But it also reaches back to other times in other relationships where I couldn’t make things work because of the same issues, there was always something in the way, be it physical distance or timing.” The accompanying video for ‘Time Difference’, directed by Ciaran O’Brien and Reddy, is great – there are even gifs on Instagram! – of which Reddy says: “I wanted to represent that feeling of being on a different schedule to everyone else by showing what it would be like if I worked an office job. I spent a lot of my early twenties working in offices while playing late night gigs in Dublin so it was just having a bit of fun with that idea.” There’s no release date for the debut album but Ailbhe Reddy promises its coming this year on her own Friends of the Family label. I can’t wait.