Crispy Leaves
Where I'm at with music, books & music recs
I’m currently sat by the window of my sister’s apartment in West London, fiddling with the crispy leaves of her pot plants and trying to put into words how I’m feeling about music. As I emerge from nearly 12 months of releasing music, I feel a little like those torched plants on the windowsill: burnt out, overexposed and in need of some nurturing, but held together by the roots I’ve grown.
When I uprooted myself from cosy Yorkshire to the big (and hot) smoke last year, my housemate sedated my anxieties by reassuring me that I was just repotting and the change in environment would bring new perspectives, new energy for music and writing. In many ways, he was right. Since then I have released a body of work that feels authentic to me and built an audience bigger than I ever thought possible. Along with some lovely friends, I have cultivated a life selling books and cheese (a million miles away from remotely writing CVs alone in my room) and built a warm and peaceful home in North London thanks to the thrify wonders of Facebook Marketplace. And although I feel proud of all these small things that make me feel safe and grounded, they have begun to give away to a familiar itch that scratches MOVE AWAY, QUIT YOUR JOB, CHANGE YOUR DREAMS!
As I look away from my Spotify back catalogue and towards the future, I’m suddenly faced with the reality that there are no more songs to release (except Mountain Babe - I haven’t forgotten…). I cannot mine purpose from objective sadmin, I have to pick up the guitar again and write music for the first time in a long time. It took a while for me to identify that my waning drive for music was in direct correlation with my lack of creative output. I got so caught up (partly out of necessity) in the “business” side of music that somewhere along the way I lost touch with the “creative” part. This realisation has instilled excitement and abject terror in equal measure, amalgamating into a bland cocktail of general avoidance.
I began to get deeply frustrated at my inability to write new music until I realised that I have been neglecting all the components that enabled me to do it all those years ago: practising the guitar, community, listening to music, going to gigs, reading and, most importantly, having the headspace, stability and time to spend hours staring out the window until the words and melodies fell into place. If I needed more proof, the year in which I wrote most of my songs, colloquially referred to as ‘The Greatest Hits’, was 2020 when most of the world was staring at the wall for at least 50% of the week.
So I think, for the first time maybe in my whole life, I am going to try and resist the itch of MOVE AWAY, QUIT YOUR JOB, CHANGE YOUR DREAMS and instead allow these roots I have painstakingly embedded to enable me to spend time growing, searching and creating again. If I am to continue with this hella sophisticated extended plant metaphor, I should probably also drink more water.
In other news you can still buy my first vinyl child on Bandcamp. Me and Yaatri’s new single ‘Letters to a Lost Poet' cut onto this beautiful 7” lathe cut cherry red piece. Huge thanks to everyone who has purchased then in person and in the ether - it means the world.
Meet you on the stage
8th August - London @ Morrocco Bound Bookshop
Meet you in the bookshop
The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai
I was reminded of this book the other day and it’s just a great, immersive story. Put simply, it follows a gallery curator’s life between three periods: 1985, 2015 and the 1920s, showing the impact that both the AIDS epidemic and First World War had on different communities in the USA and France. Eerily, I read it just before the beginning of the first lockdown and it served to teach me a little about the power of forces bigger than us that have a rippling impact on everyday life.
Meet you on the radio
Listen to my weekly playlist here!
Rosie!! I can highly relate to the feeling of neglecting the creativity in writing as a necessity to market what’s already out. I usually hoard all the unfinished poems & novels and then get stuck in this between space.
Your writing is so beautiful & open, I’m really cherishing your warmness and honesty. Needed to hear resisting the itch and trying to have a look around the pots one planted.