Cardiff-based solo artist Sad Cypress releases the haunting & dramatic new single ‘Three Wishes’.
Built around beautifully intertwined acoustic guitar parts and the raw, organic recording of her vocals, the track has a strikingly intimate quality. Its eerie atmosphere is mirrored in the lyrical content, which explores the mysteries of desire, the unknown and the shadows that linger beneath the surface.
‘Three Wishes’ gradually draws the listener into an intricate, atmospheric world. Sad Cypress delivers an eerie, captivating vocal, weaving together dark folk textures, almost-classical arpeggios and a theatrical sensibility that brings to mind the later work of Kate Bush and the vaudeville melodrama of Shakespears Sister, while the chord choices carry shades of Radiohead. There is an unsettling beauty to the track, with its mysterious, haunting guitar plucks and dark production lending a cinematic quality to the boxy vocal recording. The result is a sense of a story unfolding, yet never fully revealing its secrets, all in under two minutes.
At the heart of the single lies a series of unanswered questions, inviting listeners to consider their own desires and the motivations behind them. As Sad Cypress explains, “Three Wishes is a hall of mirrors – what do we want and why do we want it? I can see lots of different interpretations and I’m sure I’ll discover more.”
The release will be followed by an accompanying music video, currently being funded through a fan-supported Crowdfunder campaign. Drawing on themes reminiscent of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the project promises to extend the single’s dark, imaginative world beyond the music itself. The campaign also offers supporters the opportunity to access merchandise, with the initiative helping to bring the visual concept to life.
Based in Cardiff, Sad Cypress has steadily built an audience through performances across South Wales and South West England. Highlights include headlining Folk At The Moon at The Moon in Cardiff, appearing at Devauden Festival and performing at a successful Oxfam fundraiser at The Mount Without in Bristol. More recently, she presented a one-woman show at Porters in Cardiff, unveiling a new alter ego and offering audiences another glimpse into her expanding artistic world.
Building on the foundations of her debut album, ‘Magic Mountain’, which was re-released on Bandcamp in 2023, Sad Cypress continues to shape a body of work that embraces the strange, the cinematic and the emotionally ambiguous. With ‘Three Wishes’, she invites listeners into a shadowy space where folk music meets theatrical darkness, leaving the final interpretation open to anyone willing to step inside.
Listen below:
