A bold re-awakening and a fresh re-imagining from deep in Kent; it’s the return of Maz O’Connor!

Release Date: 28th November 2025

Label: Self-Released

Format: Digital

CONGRATULATiONS

Is it wrong for a site such as this to have favourites? Irrespective of that, Maz O’Connor could certainly be said to be someone that ATB likes to feature. More than that, to listen to, and it has been a while since that was granted.

Last captured live, back in 2023, we have followed her career with enthusiasm and interest. With her last release, What I Wanted, arriving the year before, she has been busy in the interim, with two im[ortant projects being successfully navigated.

The first has been ongoing work on her first foray into musical theatre,The Wife of Michael Cleary, which won the Stiles + Drewe Prize for 2023, and is now in development with West End producers. The second, and far more important, has been the birth, congratulations, of her first child.

Now, at as loose an end as parenthood ever allows, Maz has chosen the time to return to her musical beginnings – reimagining and re-composing ancient folk songs about the perils of love. Never before has she produced a set of songs drawn all from the tradition. Love It Is A Killing Thing is that album, and, whilst it isn’t due until 13th March 2026, she has now released an enticing taster of a single, a version of the time honoured classic, Once I Had A Sweetheart, albeit set to a new tune of her own composing.

ANTICIPATION

Further anticipation ensues courtesy of the team she has grouped around her, so as to present the song and her arrangement in the best possible light.

In April 2025, Maz retreated to a cottage in some Kentish woodlands and, with Zak Hobbs and Anna Rheingans, set to work. Hobbs is, of course, folk royalty, grandson of Richard (and Linda) Thompson, who, as second guitarist on Grandad’s last tour, showed himself to have fallen very very close to the tree. Rheingans needs little introduction, being one of the Rheingans Sisters. You just know it is going to be essential already.

Having a child connected me with my deepest, oldest self, and musically, for me, that’s traditional folk song. Where my musical journey began. What I love about these versions is that they’ve been smoothed down, like pebbles held by a thousand hands, until their edges have worn away and only the best lyrics remain. Their poetry has been distilled over the centuries to leave the purest, most universal, expressions of heartache behind.

Maz O’Connor on the songs of Love It Is A Killing Thing

DELICIOUS & DARK

Once I Had A Sweetheart (Round 170) is a celebrated old ballad of lost love. It has led a peripatetic life, with many, many versions and arrangements. More recent iterations have come from Oysterband and, just a month or so back, from Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage. In the hands of O’Connor and co., it becomes a deliciously darker re-imagining. The opening guitar motif would not be out of place on Liege & Lief, and there’s a very Mattacks percussion part. Mandolin ripples in and then O’Connor starts to sing, oozing a complex fragility, mixed with an icy aloofness. The instruments wend and weave about her and in the gaps between the verses, to magical intent.

On the strength of this, the album projects to be a blinder. But, if you can’t wait until March, O’Connor wil be on tour in January and February of next year, supporting Jim Moray, and playing songs from the new album.

And here is Once I Had A Sweetheart. You can stream the single on your musical platform of choice here.

Maz O’Connor online : Website / X / Instagram / Facebook

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