Hi Rachel! Please tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do? How did you get into music?
I'm Rachel and I'm an independent alternative musician and multimedia artist based in London. I sort of fell into music when I was at University in York, where I started busking. What started as a fun challenge snowballed into a full-time career of over 10 years and now, I’m fortunate enough to have had my music played by the BBC and by Netflix on TV shows. I’ve been on a bunch of European tours, performed at The Bluebird Café in Nashville, The Bitter End in New York, as well as Camden Assembly, Bush Hall and the O2’s Blue Room right here in London. I have a niche following of the best fans and I have such a fun time making music as my day job! I’ve also started up a TikTok account dedicated to helping make the arts more accessible to people from backgrounds like mine.
You’ve been making music for years, featuring on Netflix and BBC Radio among others, when did you start writing your own songs?
Back when I was busking in York and performing at open mic nights, I’d been playing a lot of covers. It was a nursery ground for getting used to playing in front of more and more people. But then in April of 2014, I went to see a Scott Matthews concert and he opened up this beautiful world of music for the sake of music, not just the mega hits most people are exposed to. The entire room was spellbound and that’s what inspired me to start writing my own experimental works. People started to pay more attention when I’d written the pieces I was playing and the response I got was really encouraging.
Your sound has been described as “intimate” and “cinematic” – which artists do you draw inspiration from?
It changes all the time. I like to think of my creativity as my ‘alter three-go’ – The Tempest, fierce things, The Author, deep, poetic things, and The Instigator, the uplifting part that encourages audience participation. My references and inspiration all loosely fall in the Alternative genre but they range from Wolf Alice to KALEO, Jeff Buckly to Lana Del Ray, Suki Waterhouse to Sam Fender. I take bits from all over the place.
Photo by Michelle Fredericks
Do you feel listening to music, whether that’s your favourite artists or musicians you share the scene with, helps with your creative process? Or does this act as a form of escapism?
I think it’s good to absorb what others are doing, whether that’s bigger artists you admire or your peers. It can light the way for you. Being in a room and watching someone live is really the most powerful way to do it, it vibrates your entire body. Live music just has more soul, doesn’t it?
Sometimes I like to listen to new music just once, so I can’t remember much of it, and then sit down to write a response. That can be a great prompt. As for escapism, it’s difficult to remove songwriting from your way of thinking when you watch other artists, unless their style is wildly different from your own. I can’t help but dissect the music as I’m listening but that never takes away from my enjoyment.
Your work doesn’t just feature your songs, you also create your own illustrations, animations and lino cuts. How do you think this adds to your work as a whole? And how does your art influence how your sound is perceived?
As an indie artist, it started as a necessity. But the whole 360 scope of planning, drawing, writing, designing, animating, and then releasing my own projects is something that brings me a lot of satisfaction. I love handmade things and I think the value of art comes from the time we put in and the toil of the human mind. The meaning behind the art is often more powerful than the result itself. I could whack a prompt into an AI creator tool and get something similar to my ‘Failure’ animation in seconds but the fact that it took three months of work with paper, ink and scissors - along with my photographer friend Michelle Fredericks - makes it so much cooler. And I probably could have made my vinyl art on a computer in a fraction of the time but the fact I used only black ink working with negative space? It’s wobbly, it’s human and that’s why it’s cool. The effort I put in. I used to worry a lot about my art linking perfectly with my music but then I realised, it all comes out of my brain. That’s the link. My work encompasses all elements of my creativity and I know my following loves to share that with me.
Lastly, do you have any exciting projects coming up you can share with us?
Yes - I’m doing another leg of my UK tour this October, including Bristol, Birmingham and others, and I’ve just announced my December solo show here in London. As always, I’m working on new music for next year alongside a new mixed media animation for my most popular song ‘Time Waits For No Man’ because it deserves a cool video! I’m also about to release a live version of one of my songs recorded at Abbey Road Studios, and filling up my 2026 calendar with festival slots and new tour dates in the UK and abroad.
If anyone is interested in seeing more of what I get up to, I have a little community over on Patreon. I give premieres and all sorts of goodies and exclusive bits as a thank you. It is my lifeline and my rock and if you find fully independent music projects made by hand pretty cool, I’d love you to join!
What’s your favourite way to listen to music?
Honestly, I’m a little bit weird and I don’t listen to a huge amount of music at home. If I listen to too much, my own creativity starts to dry up. I love listening to podcasts that dissect music though, like And The Writer Is… with Ross Golan or Song Exploder hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway. I am a huge fan of vinyl though – I love that medium, the space for the artwork it affords and the ceremonious and intentional nature of selecting a record and listening to it in full.
How do you discover new music?
I tend to pick up on things when I’m walking around the city. I use Shazam a lot when I’m out and about and love finding things that way. I have a few friends who put me on to new music as well. My band is very good for that, being like-minded musicians. I owe a lot of my recent playlists to them!
You’ve just released a new single ‘Skin and Bone’ – what was the creative process like when you were writing this?
As a songwriter, you can get a bit choked up with pressure when you let your presence of self get in the way of the creative process, so for this song I tried to embody other artists. I actually spent a bit of time asking myself, what would Hozier do? I love everything about his music. I really wrote Skin and Bone away from myself, if that makes sense. I tried not to pick it apart too much and allowed it to flow. The other thing I tried to do was visualise the song being performed in a grand space, so I pictured the Royal Albert Hall. I’m a long way away from that yet but my hope is to one day make that a reality.
Photo by Keith Fredericks
