Inspired #267 - feeo
Oxford experimental neo-soul songwriter producer feeo has just released her debut EP ‘feels like we’re getting older doesn’t it’. She took a moment to talk to us about the inspirations behind her music.
Who are your top three musical inspirations and why?
Joni Mitchell is my all time hero. Her songs have been a huge source of inspiration for me while discovering my love for storytelling and my own creative voice.
Jon Hassell. I’ve only recently stumbled across his work, but have quickly become obsessed with the way he uses sonics to create a sense of place. He is a different kind of storyteller, using music to build primitive futurist landscapes. I am intrigued by this form of world building and have been taking a lot of notes while listening to his stuff.
The Comet is Coming. Some of the best live performances I have ever seen have been from The Comet is Coming. They are like sound Titans. Watching them is always such a spiritual/ primal experience and incredibly inspiring when thinking about the sanctity of live music. I aspire to one day have a live show that is as immersive as theirs.
Is there a certain film that inspires you and why?
I recently rewatched Spring Breakers and found it really inspiring. I love the way that Harmony Korine represents time in his films. He really captures time and place with cinematography- very like a documentary. He also messes with time structurally within the film . Spring Breakers doesn’t follow a linear narrative in the way that we are used to. Instead every moment in the film could be occurring simultaneously, which is a really interesting way to experience time.
What city do you find the most inspiring and why?
In the past I’ve found a lot of my inspiration in the countryside - wide open spaces were integral to my creative process when I first started writing. However since moving back to London I’ve found myself spatially visualising cityscapes a lot more while writing. Iv'e recently been thinking a lot about a future deserted London - I like imagining what the city will look like in thousands of years.
Who is the most inspiring person to you and why?
There’s not really one person that inspires me more than anyone else particularly. I’m just very admirable of anyone who dances to the beat of their own drum and stylishly cracks on with existence.
What were your inspirations when writing your new EP?
I was thinking a lot about endings in a lot of different capacities when writing the EP. ‘Memento Mori’ was really inspired by that speech in Hamlet where he’s going on about the mortal coil etc. I guess its asking the question of whether life ends when the body dies and kind of getting caught up in the obsession with having a legacy that lives beyond death. I wrote ‘blue river running’ when I was lifeguarding at a pool in Oxford. There’s definitely some irony here, given that I was writing a song about trying to save someone from death while I was supposed to be focussing on stopping people from drowning. Needless to say I wasn’t the best lifeguard. Overall though, the EP was very much inspired by the feeling of getting older, the feeling of struggling with endings and with change on both a micro and macro level.
How would you like to inspire people?
I think I’d just like people to realise the importance of the plurality of narratives in making history. All we can really do is share stories between us, that’s all I’m doing and I think it’s what everyone should do.