Hexing Folk Traditions: A ‘Witch Pop’ Conversation

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You use a Swedish vocal technique called Kulning, for those that don’t know, can you give us some history of this and how you came to incorporate this into your music?

I always sang in this kind of style. It wasn't until just before lockdown (6 years ago) I went on a mission to the Lakes with my other half, finding natural reverb within caves and amongst trees.

I took videos of the experience and after posting it online, everyone loved it and I discovered it was called ‘Kulning’. A traditional vocal technique throughout Scandi countries, originating from Finland and Sweden, it was used as a form of communication throughout alpine landscapes, to herd cattle.

Apparently it’s very specific what you do with the notes so I have questioned how I've been doing something so niche without fully understanding what it is. I actually went on ancestry.com and it turns out I have distant relatives in Sweden so this is an ongoing investigation.

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How do you think you have developed as an artist in the last 5 years- as a person, sonically, song writing technique development, performance/ production?

I didn’t actually have TikTok until 2 years ago, I've been predominantly present on Instagram.

I’ve always loved using it as a kind of ‘diary’ of my life and this was where one of my first posts went viral. At first I was like ‘oh my god, how do you even deal with this’ because there was SO much positivity, until a point. I think I got to 1 million views and then the negative comments started getting to me. 

I questioned whether I could deal with it and it was all a bit overwhelming. I don’t want to listen to the small percentage of people that say bad stuff and I really wanted to do it for the people that enjoyed it. So I started posting across different social platforms, the band had finalised its line up and felt I really wanted to do it properly. So across Facebook, YouTube and TikTok and it was well received across each.

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How would you describe your music?

I like to use the word ‘Witch-Pop’ as an umbrella term. 

I have the Kulning stuff which is more traditional-folk, I have a more mainstream pop album called ‘Kiss the Ground’ that has more electronic & rock elements, and developing this into the newer stuff I'm writing, which is more folk-rock.

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Spare time- how do you switch off?

Myself and my partner love to read. We tend to read to each other, we have a routine at night. Whatever he’s reading, he’ll read it to me, usually it’s non-fiction and is a very exploratory text. When I read on my own, it’s very high fantasy, dragons, wizards etc… I think a lot of my inspiration comes from this because that's kind of the world I live in my head. I like to feel things. Things that change your brain chemistry, I love that sort of stuff.

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Where/when do you think your musical journey started?

I’ve never had a singing lesson in my life. People think I’m classically trained but I just blame my mum for not telling me to be quiet when I was younger. I remember when I was really young I would dance to Riverdance. As I grew up I never lost my childhood view on life, I think people look at me weirdly because I’m still interesting.

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As you have an all female line up for the Newgate Social gig and we have just celebrated International Women’s Day… Who would you say is your biggest female inspiration?

Women like Billie Holiday, Aurora. Especially Joy Williams who I was really obsessed with and I really feel like she taught me how to sing. I had a chance to see them perform and I couldn't because I was, yet again, hung up on another silly boy. I feel like listening to her was a major event of my life. From starting to listen to her she took me from a college level ‘Musical Theatre’ artist to being a technical musician.

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Fashion is a huge thing for me. Sometimes if I see an outfit, I can picture a whole song around it. There’s a designer called ‘Dreaming Eli’. All based on 17th century fashion trends, it’s all very gothic-romanticism. I've really gotten into making my performances more theatrical recently. Folklore inspired paintings are really ingrained in my head so whenever I create anything, it always stems from colours and themes of people like John William Waterhouse- he always portrays women so beautifully.

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What can people expect from your upcoming tour? Will there be more theatrics, any more Green Men type-figurines like from your Cluny gig?

I had an idea for dedicating my December gig to ‘The Horned God’ also associated with ‘Yule’. I felt like I needed an effigy of him (what is Paganism without its effigies!)… so I got a large box (bigger than me), cut a circle out, and paper-mâchéd the face onto it, this took me MONTHS!

Day-to-day I work in a vegan cafe and we get magazines delivered regularly, one of which is ‘Narc’, (free monthly alternative music and culture magazine for the North East). We have so many older editions waiting to be recycled, so I took these home and used them on my creation. So my set is literally made up of the local music scene.

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How does performing in the North East compare to other places you have played?

I think growing up, I wasn’t always embraced up here. There is a very specific music scene (especially in Sunderland) and if you stray from that, it kind of feels like sacrilege. Each to their own if you want to stay that way but recently I think people are much more open to new ideas. I do want to represent my home town and I'm getting more opportunities to be able to give back.

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Having the opportunity to travel and play up and down the county was really eye opening and the North East feels like it’s catching up now. I think one of my favourite venues was in Cumbria, we were playing a festival (it was very impromptu) very tight community event, I came on stage with my mental craic- not expecting anything from it, and my set was just so well received by everyone. Everyone was witch-pop mad afterwards. It was so nice. I have lots more lined up closer to home that I haven't announced yet but I'm so excited to share it with everyone.

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Do you have a memorable gig/ musical moment you can share with us?

I was in Edinburgh, just off the Royal Mile there is a little restaurant/cafe called ‘The Last Drop’. Whilst I was sitting there, a load of session musicians came in and sat down and just started playing the fiddle, guitar and it was just so relaxed, organic and natural. I’ve had loads of things like this happen to me in my life:

I went to Iceland with my mum (the place, not the shop…) it was the first evening, we’d just been out for tea and as we left the restaurant, there was this black cat sitting outside. It started wandering off and my Mam said "shall we follow the cat?” (You wonder where I get my curiosity from…) so it led us to the Cathedral in Reykjavík. I said we shouldn't go in but there was a sign on the door saying ‘visitors welcome’, so we wandered in and sat in the pew, in the archway there was a choir setting up to practice. It was the most spiritual experience, like angels singing and me and my Mam were just sitting crying. It was so surreal.

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Do you have a memory of a certain artist or piece of music that you remember listening to growing up?

I remember my auntie was a singer and she used to work at Butlins up and down the country. There was an album that she had that she gave me, it was classical hits, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart etc. I would sit in front of my dad’s hi-fi speakers at home so I could feel the vibrations of the music.

The first album I ever bought was called ‘The New Breed’ and it had Nirvana, The Rasmus, Feeder, I guess what we call now ‘dad rock’. that’s the sort of stuff I loved when I was younger, weird how age affects you and your music taste. I feel like I've never really had 1 musical genre. The more you consume as an artist, the greater the output.

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