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Scottish singer/songwriter Rosie H Sullivan displays a expertise for storytelling in her sophomore EP ‘In My Nature’ trying into her upbringing via considerate lyricism and manufacturing.
Stream: ‘In My Nature’ – Rosie H Sullivan
Each time I’m making music it’s like an outlet for me. All the songs that I put on the market are 100% genuine to me. It nonetheless amazes me that folks take heed to my songs and relate to and luxuriate in them.
Rosie H Sullivan grew up on the Isle of Lewis, a tiny island in northern Scotland. Although she was born in central Scotland, she grew up within the Outer Hebrides along with her two siblings and father. Her upbringing and hometown function supply of inspiration for her second EP, In My Nature.
“We lived proper subsequent to the seashore and the island was stunning with panorama, nature, and seascapes that are featured in my music. It was my favourite place,” Sullivan tells Atwood Journal.
Sullivan has a tattoo on her arm as a continuing reminds her of this “favourite place” which she references in her tune “Fragments.” She lived by the ocean for 18 years till she determined to maneuver to mainland Aberdeenshire to be nearer to household. Although she was nonetheless within the countryside, Sullivan describes that “shifting from an island to Northern Eire was a really huge change, particularly since that’s all [she’s] ever recognized.”
The 20-year-old artist is the youngest in her household. By 2020, Sullivan had skilled many huge shifts and life adjustments— “I realized quite a bit about myself, and I used to be studying quite a bit, and I used to be doing quite a lot of music. I had a revelation interval which I discuss at first of the tune ‘Wildflowers’—10 months I’ve been alone wasted time, however I see how I’ve grown.” Sullivan may be very in tune with herself and that’s evident in her music and reflection.
“It felt like a really unusual 10 months the place nothing was actually occurring, however quite a bit was occurring on the identical time. I actually bought to know myself inside that time period and the following yr I moved all the way down to uni.”
On the small Scottish Island, there was quite a lot of music however not many different musicians. When Sullivan moved to the UK for varsity, she realized that “there are folks out right here that suppose like [her] too.” Her band has been constructed via folks she met at college, and being round a neighborhood of musicians has helped her achieve expertise too.
Sullivan’s sophomore EP, options 5 tracks:
- “Wildflowers and Cobblestones”
- “Solely a Girl”
- “Fragments”
- “Chapters”
- “Timeless”
Because of the album’s orchestral nature the precise manufacturing can’t be re-created in dwell performances. Nevertheless, with Sullivan’s shut buddies Rob and Ursula, there’s a sturdy instrumental presence when enjoying dwell— “Rob’s a guitarist and an incredible singer, Ursula is a keyboard participant and an incredible singer as effectively.” Together with the guitar and keys, Heather is a bassist and Angus is a drummer for Sullivan’s band. Every observe is just not solely a bit of Sullivan’s life, however it’s a testomony to the folks she has constructed relationships with.
In an interview with Atwood Journal, Rosie H Sullivan discusses her newest EP, gratitude for her upbringing, and a mirrored image of her progress.
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A CONVERSATION WITH ROSIE H SULLIVAN
Atwood Journal: The EP may be very cinematic and delightful. Earlier than even creating the EP, what was your creative route in what you wished to inform the world about Rosie H Sullivan?
Rosie H Sullivan: Each time I’m making music it’s like an outlet for me. All the songs that I put on the market are 100% genuine to me. It nonetheless amazes me that folks take heed to my songs and relate to and luxuriate in them. As an artist, getting on the market, and simply connecting with folks has at all times been my greatest factor. I feel having a platform and having the ability to do that’s such a pleasure. I really like listening to tales about individuals who’ve heard my music or the place they’ve heard it, and why they’ve heard it and what they consider it. I simply love that connection aspect and it’s tremendous vital for me to be as unapologetically genuine as I may be. I hope that comes throughout in my music.
Main into your first piece “Wildflowers and Cobblestones” you sing about leaving this outdated life to bridge a brand new one within the metropolis. May you inform me extra about this?
Rosie H Sullivan: On this EP, I did some collaborative work with different artists. I wrote some songs with different folks however wasn’t feeling myself for a few of them. This one was a type of, and my producer and collaborator, Ross Hamilton, who produced the primary EP with me bought shut. If you’re in an inventive relationship with somebody, you get very near them since you spend eight hours a day with them. There may be at all times going to be very deep conversations, and it’s going to be a satisfying setting.
We constructed up this relationship and bought to know quite a bit about one another. He got here to me with this refrain concept, and we went to the studio, and sat down to write down the tune collectively. That was considered one of my first experiences of co-writing which was very nice. I wrote that tune with Ross as a result of he understood the entire first EP and he understood me as an artist and particular person I feel it’s tremendous vital to have that relationship with somebody once you’re writing it’s a must to perceive what one another needs out of it.
Wow, that’s superior to listen to about. What themes did you navigate within the tune?
Rosie H Sullivan: I had simply completed my first yr of college after we wrote the tune and constructed via a time interval. The start is the primary 10 months I used to be alone and looking out again on after we first left the island as a household. Then the second half bridges over the to once I moved out of the household residence to Edinburgh. I sing “One yr on/Conversations via partitions/I hear the sounds/Echo down via the halls” which there have been lots of of individuals dwelling on this block and it’s a metropolis and it’s actually completely different. It’s nearly that duality of life and the way I had traded this for this. I feel every time there’s change or one thing occurs in life, you’re at all times a little bit bit anxious. This tune embodies that duality and that change—I’m dwelling my imperfect life; I’ll be completely satisfied and unhappy on the identical time.
As a artistic and songwriter, it looks like you’ve had actually good moments to attach what you’re writing with what you’re studying. You possibly can see that on this EP constructing off of what you sing about in “Fragments,” which is a love tune to your private home. What has this place meant for you not solely in inspiration of your music and writing however in gratitude and reflection as an artist?
Rosie H Sullivan: Rising up within the Isle of Louis, it’s such a good looking place. It has an enormous place in my coronary heart, and it’ll at all times be a part of me, and I’ll at all times be a part of it. That’s precisely what the tune is about. My household is a really outdoorsy household, and I grew up by the ocean, climbing and tenting and my dad’s an enormous kayaker. That simply fed into my love of the place the place I lived and was fortunate sufficient to be there.
Typically, I might simply sit on the sand dunes and take a look at the ocean and watch the waves. It was my place of concord and perfection and a small escape from the world for a short second—simply having fun with sitting there and taking all of it in. It’s someplace that I’ll at all times really feel hooked up to and I can really feel it in my blood, I can really feel it in my physique. It’s probably the most stunning locations on earth and I find it irresistible a lot. I miss it quite a bit and I do know I can at all times return to it. “Fragments” is about that love and at all times realizing that’s the place you belong.
That’s like a central level of your album and going to “Chapters,” I actually like your writing as a result of quite a lot of it’s easy, but it surely’s additionally very poetic. May you inform me how this piece was virtually a preview to this EP in was writing it and releasing it?
Rosie H Sullivan: I first began writing “Chapters” once I was 17. I used to be nonetheless on the island dwelling with my household and it was really the tune that bought me my supervisor now to work with me. Clearly, the video of me singing is on the seashore and my supervisor completely liked it after which bought in contact due to that tune. Then I feel somebody near me informed me that they didn’t just like the tune or they sort of made enjoyable of it or one thing. And I used to be like, “Oh, simply put it into the bin.”
Then the final yr or so everybody on the label—my managers and producer had been like “Chapters” is a extremely good tune. Possibly we must always revisit this. I went into the studio at some point, and we had been simply going to be recording for the EP, however we hadn’t actually determined the 5 songs but. They got here in and Ross was like, “What do you say we perhaps give “Chapters” a go?” I trusted all of them so I stated to offer it a go. Me and Ross wrote the brand new bridge and added extra vocal harmonies with a little bit little bit of a special texture on harmonica change.
After that day, I fell again in love with the tune and trusting these round you is an enormous lesson. I feel generally you don’t belief your self, but it surely takes a little bit of realization that in case you can belief different folks with it, you possibly can belief your self too. That was a pleasant lesson to study. fell again in love with the tune and it’s nice and it’s on the EP. Little 17-year-old Rosie’s very completely satisfied.
What would you say you’ve realized since being 17-year-old Rosie now that you simply’re older, and reflecting and revisiting this piece?
Rosie H Sullivan: I feel a lot has occurred, that was 4 years in the past. Lots of completely different chapters start and finish inside that point, however I feel there’s a magnificence to going again to one thing. What I like about it’s the tune has a pleasant innocence and naivety to it. It was simply concerning the easy issues in life and about benefiting from each second and never being afraid of change. Chapters are going to start, and chapters are going to finish however there’s going to be issues happening and issues to maintain you going.
“Life is for the dwelling and the goals are for dreaming and hope is for hoping”, and you’ve got all this stuff to carry on to. It was good to revisit it with a couple of extra years of expertise. The bridge goes, “It’s in my nature to signal this paper” and is featured within the title of this EP—it’s in my nature to show this web page. It’s a pleasant solution to sum up that, there’s been a couple of chapters since I began writing it, there’s going to be extra chapters. Regardless of the place I’m going, I’m at all times occupied with writing and I’m at all times writing issues down. My cellphone notes are stuffed with issues, and I’ve a pocket book and a pen in my bag each single time I depart the home. It’s that notice of this stuff in life that I do and can proceed to do.
That is at all times the easiest way to go about reflecting on once you’re youthful and you’re taking a step away from it and achieve perspective on different issues. In your subsequent tune, “Solely a Girl” that you simply wrote with Katie Sutherland—it is a actually layered piece. I feel it is actually cool as a result of you’ve gotten drums, vocal layering, and the writing is easy, however you painting quite a lot of complexities about being a lady. May you clarify that artistic course of with Katie and what you guys had been attempting to painting via that piece?
Rosie H Sullivan: I began writing it final August and at the moment there was quite a lot of stuff within the media about shit occurring to girls nonetheless. I might discover about extra stuff happening and I used to be in a section of being fairly indignant about it. I had conversations with a couple of folks round that point as effectively who had been indignant about it, even Ross. I’m a 20-year-old pupil, I’m dwelling alone, why can’t I stroll someplace on my own when it’s darkish? It’s the world we’re nonetheless dwelling in and I had quite a lot of sturdy emotions in the direction of it. I began writing and scribbling down the tune and I had this concept, fairly tongue and cheek, that “I’m solely a lady in spite of everything.” I really feel like that’s the way in which quite a lot of the world and society seems to be at us and we’ve been situation to take heed to males or not take heed to girls.
I took it to Katie as a result of I wished to collaborate with one other lady within the trade. She’s now a mom and about 10 years older than me. She’s bought two youngsters and having another person who’s a feminine artist and songwriter has introduced completely different experiences and views so as to add into the tune. Bringing these two forces collectively, writing was very nice. When the tune got here out, I stated it was like a remedy session that me and her had chatting about being girls and we then simply settled right into a tune. Each single line in that tune is has a lot energy and a punch to it, we made positive there was one thing behind it and which means to why we had been writing it. It seems like a extremely sturdy one and it was tremendous good to write down that with a extremely sturdy lady.
Collaborating and bringing her perspective now as a mom and as an older lady into that tune with you who’s navigating your 20s and reflecting on is a extremely cool mixture. You end off with “Timeless,” which is simply stunning. I do know you included the story of Hamish Gow. What’s his story and the way did you incorporate this into your remaining piece on the EP?
Rosie H Sullivan: As I stated earlier than, I grew up in a really outdoorsy household and my dad’s an enormous kayaking fanatic and Hamish Gow was a kayaking pioneer in Scotland within the Nineteen Eighties. My dad was recreating this documentary for a program. Within the Sixties, Hamish Gow and his spouse would go kayak out to this place referred to as St. Kilda, which is about 30 miles off the west coast of Scotland. It was an insane journey, and so they solely had a compass in these occasions, so that they didn’t have a plan B however fortunately that they had made it to this island. While my dad was recreating this documentary with quite a lot of actually gifted kayakers, he bought the chance to talk to Hamish and chat about his journeys.
He gave my dad quite a lot of his outdated movie from the Sixties of their kayaking and tenting adventures. My dad bought all of it developed after which put it on the TV in Hamish’s home. He needed to be about 80 by this time simply smoking a cigar, and my dad recorded him on a voice notice on his iPhone watching this footage that he hadn’t seen for 40 years. He was simply watching this superb footage which goes to be featured within the music video. It’s stunning.
Hamish was speaking about the way it was in that point. I grew up with these tales in the home, we’ve quite a lot of movie and quite a lot of images and quite a lot of work of Hamish’s stuff. Hamish died in 2017 and my dad now has all of his recordings, all of his movie, and I’ve images up at residence. It’s a narrative I’ve grown up with. After I began writing the tune, it was about my love for Scotland, and I knew precisely who I wished on this. We’ve a recording of his voice on the tune now and it hyperlinks to “Chapters” the place I say, “The chapter is closed/However our tales by no means finish.”
Though Hamish handed a couple of years in the past, his story is one thing that I’ll carry with me There’s a voice there and other people may ask, “whose voice is that?” and it’s a narrative that I can unfold that’s actually near me and my household. It feels very nice to sum up my love for Scotland and the landscapes and the ocean.
Properly, that was an exquisite solution to shut off Within the Nature particularly with Hamish’s connection to Scotland. Thanks on your time, I loved listening to your music.
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