Niall Breslin - The Place That Has Never Been Wounded

Niall Breslin, known to many as Bressie, is embarking on tour to celebrate the release of The Place That Has Never Been Wounded, a spacious, introspective new album out October 24 via Icelandic label INNI. A marked departure from his earlier work, its 14 piano-led pieces, enriched with strings and ambient textures, explore themes too complex for words.

Part musical breakthrough, part philosophical treatise, and part autobiography, The Place That Has Never Been Wounded spotlights Breslin’s inherent musicality and his continued sharing of his personal journey. “There's an awful lot about my life that I can't really express,” he explains. “Things that I find really difficult to understand, or to put into words. And those are the things I put into music.”

Breslin has a lot of experience to work from. His storied career has included everything from playing professional rugby, until a career-ending injury, to releasing hit records, both solo, and with his former band The Blizzards. He’s written an award-winning memoir entitled Me, and my Mate Jeffrey, and started the ‘A Lust For Life’ charity, which provides early prevention mental health programmes in half of Ireland’s primary schools. Currently studying a PhD in Trinity College Dublin, Niall is focusing on the intersection of music and mindfulness. Somewhere along the way, making sense of life became a public process, and in that sense, the new album is the sound of many disparate pieces sliding into place.

Recorded at Camden Recording Studios in Dublin over five days with the help of friend and producer Eliot James (Bloc Party, Two Door Cinema Club, Petr Aleksander). They double-tracked each piece on a Steinway grand piano and a felted upright piano, resulting in a sound that’s both intimate and rich, a peaceful space for a certain kind of quietude.

“I've learned in my own life that you can't avoid the things that make you uncomfortable,” says Breslin. “This record is meant to help people sit with that — the good, the bad, and the ugly of life. A soundtrack that lets you sit with it all.”

The album will be accompanied by a book of the same name, due for publication by John Murray One in print, ebook and audio editions in January 2026. Each track is named after one chapter, and each of the four acts — The Polaris Principles, Duchas, Metta, and The Place That Has Never Been Wounded — is titled after one of its core concepts inspired by the work of Meister Eckhart. An extended version of the album is planned, to include spoken word reflections intended for use in guided meditation.

“A line I use in the spoken word is we've become so busy chasing a life that we've ultimately missed living it,” Breslin says. “And that's what this album's about — living what's in front of you. Even if what's in front of you isn't particularly nice — live it. That’s the goal of this record, really.”