Track By Track: Wyse - 'Anomalies'
Portsmouth-based songstress Wyse recently released her second EP, the idosyncratic ‘Anomalies’. She took a moment to talk us through it track by track.
Not That Sorry
You know when you’re working for somebody who seems set on making your life at work bl••••• hard? That was what this song was about. I wanted to make something sassy, and have the satisfaction of making a song full of attitude… without taking that into work and getting fired.
Oh, except I did get fired in the end…
I started with the drum beat (as I often do) then added the synth riff at the beginning, I thought.. wow this synth sounds HORRIBLE. In it goes.
As I was full of frustration about my work situation, that the song was quite easy to write once I got the right feel with the drums and the pace. The heavy guitars in intro came next. As I’m obsessed with contrast, I went for a “The Flaming Lips” inspired feel in the choruses.
Having started out on the drums when I was a kid by bashing around on pots and pans (whilst I saved up for a drum kit), I have ALWAYS wanted to put a pots and pans solo in a song somewhere. I was so excited to finally fit one into a song!
Hologram
I wrote Hologram when I was 17, so the song itself is almost a decade old now!
When I completed the production of this song, I realised it was the first time I really let myself not give a shit about what anyone thought. I used to get comments about it being weird I played electric guitar as a girl, that it didn’t’ “look right”. But I just thought… who cares? I’m going to write a massive heavily-driven anthem with a hundred electric guitars in it 🖕
This song explores the difference between loving the idea of somebody vs ACTUALLY loving them
Hologram remains to be one of my proudest in terms of the concept, the lyrics and the music.
Wisdom
This song came in many forms initially. It started by being, sort of funky and sort of acoustic… if you can visualise that. Then, following from my experience with the production of Hologram, I just wanted a wall of electric guitars, with the contrast of dreaminess in the other sections.
Wisdom is quite a “classic” writing style for me. Often my songs don’t really have a “normal” structure. I like to let the song guide the structure, as to what felt right for each particular song (same for Human in my previous EP). Sometimes that comes out as a traditional pop song structure, and sometimes it doesn’t… as with Wisdom.
Wisdom was an effort to embody the sort of person I want(ed) to become
Drown
You may have gauged by now that the theme of this record is contrast. Having had some gritty guitar textures on the rest of the EP, I wanted to make a song that was a nod to how I started out – just me with my acoustic guitar, playing in various bars around Portsmouth when I was 16.
I wanted this song to be both melancholic, nostalgic, and uplifting all at the same time. The song is about finally moving on from a past relationship: that sense of sadness to finally let something go, mixed with a feeling of utter relief.