🔗 Share this article

Online networks has brought back your song Headlock, but how did it feel two decades back when you had to develop, publicize and distribute the Speak For Yourself album mostly by yourself?

At that time if you were lucky you got into music or style publications. The main attention I got was in the specialist audio publications, but then the track Hide and Seek was in The OC, Headlock got on the radio and I started getting recognition. Imagine having social media and all this complimentary marketing 20 years ago … but if I’d received then the kind of attention I get now, I might have made changed paths, so I don’t regret a thing.

Is it true you refinanced your flat to finance Speak For Yourself?

Over a four-year period making an album in [the electronic duo] Frou Frou on a record company, but it failed to earn back so I never saw a penny. Creating more music with that label would have felt like returning to a place that damaged your treasured item. After I got out of that deal, no bank would lend me any money. Then I realised that my two-bedroom flat in Waterloo I’d bought for a specific amount was worth a hundred grand more a year later. I used its equity to make the album and never looked back. Funnily enough, after all the online resurgence recently I’ve just received my first royalties from Frou Frou after a quarter-century.

More than 20 years ago, you recorded and toured with Jeff Beck. How did the collaboration come about?

We were introduced when I was young at a songwriting camp in Miles Copeland’s castle in the Dordogne. I was the junior participant and shy so I got fairly inebriated. I was sitting outside strumming poorly to myself and Jeff said: “Allow me to teach you.” I said: “That’s impressive!” That evening I ended up operating a golf caddy around the estate and crashing into Miles’s mum’s valued ceramics. Seven days after I got a message from my manager asking: “You encountered Jeff Beck?” He told me he was this well-known musician – It surprised me – who wanted me to collaborate vocally. I sang his beautiful track Nadia as best I could and did performances with him. He was a sweet man and I admired him greatly. Numerous artists from that generation are just so thankful to have been able to do what they loved all those years, and their egos are very small in comparison to the amount of fame they had.

‘I wish social media existed and all this free promotion in that era’ … the artist, her location, the mid-2000s.

Her autobiographical work is a innovative composition, intended to evolve over time every seven years. How hard was it to summarize a timeframe into 60 seconds?

I don’t know if I did it very effectively, but I sat in a specially designed chair and asked audiences: “What music deserves creation?” There were numerous different answers, but all connected to life stages. For anyone aged very young it was single word answers like “cat” or “game”, from 7-14 it was fun, adolescence was about wanting to be themselves and adulthood “I’m in the wrong job and that maybe I personal reevaluation.” I didn’t complete those years because my personal tragedy in my 42nd year and I just couldn’t do it, but I’m about to release the last installment, a lengthy track called that name, about who I am now. The Listening Chair is all accurate. The line “Embarrassing school incident … I’ll never live it down” is about the time my best friend – who wasn’t then – took my silly undergarment out of my drawer and threw it through the German classroom window. Then everyone played with it. I was mortified.

How did you get the idea for The Happy Song? It consistently delights my one-year-old whenever I put it on, so thank you.

A formula brand the company wanted to create a composition that would make babies happier, so they put me in a research setting. I iterated various bits of music depending on their feedback. My young child started some of the melodies. We’d taken her to the an exhibition so that’s where “the fun sounds” comes from. The sound at the outset is her enjoying a pet. Young listeners enjoy the music, but it calms stressed-out parents, too.

Were you really a rebel at school and if so what were you rebelling against?

It troubles me for some of the things I did. The final incident came when I told the matron to F-off and they removed me, but they still needed me to be the highlight for the final show, so I ended up residing temporarily and she was very supportive. I just found boarding school extremely dull. I was recently diagnosed with specific conditions, which might explain why I’ve always wanted to create change and do different projects.

What shades have you tried?

In recent times, actually, all kinds of unusual tones. When I was younger I had self-image concerns, so like I’d wear garments to make my legs not look so slender or wear over-the-top costumes with feathers. For the extended period I’d tease my hair into a huge bush because I felt my head was too tiny. It’s only in the past six years I’ve realised I actually like my hair – I just needed to stick some layers in it.

Many years since your last major record. Will we ever get a another album?

Certainly, I did the soundtrack work [The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – in Four Contemporary Suites], and a couple of years ago I made the music to an digital production called that title with my collaborator the creator, who gave me a bunch of sounds like environmental samples, which we turned into a extended work. I just got tired of traditional formats, but now I’m really excited about freestyling and making up lyrics in the moment. I’ve spent thousands of hours isolated creatively and I’ve foregone experiences. There will be a album eventually which will be the last of that era but I’m more excited about creating music in real time.

‘I dedicated extensive time to recording and I’ve foregone opportunities’ … The artist performs in that city, March 2025.

During that period, that artist invited fans to her Rhode Island home to hear her new album that record while she plied them with cookies. It seemed a very typical thing to do. Had you discussed listener connection when you collaborated on the closing track, Clean?

Not specifically. I think, like me, she just enjoys public response. I’m constantly bringing guests going: “Can I play this?” It’s touching to see if something you’ve just finished resonates with others people. I’ve had lots of fans round to private shows and I’m sure her fans are as welcoming.

In the past, a article about your goals to use technology in concerts. Fans expressed concerns. Is it still ongoing?

Definitely. When people think of AI they maybe think of this independent entity making all the music while I’m sitting there being a puppet. I see it as a cooperative effort. Say I’m in a natural setting and there’s {dog sounds