Snaig Tharta was a collaborative project between Nora Candey & Scott Candey. We intended this project to be ongoing. Nora was my wife, and she wrote the songs on “lighthunter.” On November 2nd, 2020 she passed away.  Nora had lived with cancer for over 6 years, and some of the the fear and struggles of that are apparent in her lyrics.

It’s the most structured musical project I have been involved in ages. We rolled this idea around for years but it wasn’t until late 2016 we started writing. Describing the style has been difficult, it contains elements of Shoegaze, Ambient, Dream Pop, Gothic Americana, Dark Electronics and with the addition of traditional instruments like harp, violin and banjo.

We released our first outing “lighthunter ep” July 24th, 2018. We made a hasty video for the track “ghosts” that’s included below. It’s a slightly different mix than ended up on the record. She was in remission when we recorded most of it. Toward the end of mixing it she was not feeling great, and in September of 2018 we learned that the cancer had come back and metastasized.

I’m not sure what will become of Snaig Tharta and whether I will continue it. There are some undeveloped ideas she had started to work out, and I have things I’d like to try with it. I’m hoping to do one more release that includes some remixed tracks from “lighthunter” with some new recordings at some point.

You can hear some of Nora’s solo recordings here. All proceeds from Nora’s music go into a Grant fund I established in her name through the Oregon Bluegrass Association, The Nora Candey Memorial Songwriting Grant.

Snaig Tharta Discography…
“Lighthunter” – Digital Release – Crionic Mind (July 2018)