For Those I Love, the brainchild of Dublin producer and songwriter David Balfe, has released his critically-acclaimed debut album. ‘For Those I Love’ is available now on LP, CD and DL via September Recordings.
At its core, the album pays tribute to Dave’s best friend and former bandmate, Paul Curran, who passed away in 2018. Following Paul’s tragic death, Dave locked himself away in his home studio for months, ultimately recording over 76 songs that would eventually be condensed down to form the basis of his debut album. The result is an incredibly beautiful, raw and uncompromising nine-track project addressing grief and catharsis, an important record that could only emerge from an entirely honest place.
Alongside the album release, For Those I Love also share the self-directed video to You Stayed / To Live, a stark collection of digitised imagery pulled from the belly and heart of the record, ending on footage of Balfe & Curran as their teenage selves, on stage once more, playing together in one of their formative bands. Watch the You Stayed / To Live video clip via YouTube below.
Introduced to the world last year through the hard-nosed, beautiful eulogy of debut single I Have A Love and the socio-political ruminations of its follow-up Top Scheme, early 2021 he announced the details of his much-anticipated debut album via September Recordings alongside a third single, the electric Birthday / The Pain, paired to a remarkable video forged through a process called photogrammetry (watch).
Alongside significant breakthroughs at press and radio over the last year, David performed live for the first time ever under the For Those I Love moniker in November on Later… with Jools Holland, delivering a performance ingrained with such emotional weight that ‘For Those I Love’ was to go on to trend on Twitter soon afterwards.
Watch I Have a Love (Live on Jools Holland) here
David first began work on For Those I Love as a chance to write frankly about the struggles he and his friends faced while growing up in north Dublin. Anecdotally and otherwise, For Those I Love documents the harsh realities of a daily life up against it, and holds a mirror up to the clear disparity between a working class upbringing and the lack of opportunity that remains to this day.
The self-titled debut album from For Those I Love is out now via September Recordings.
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