In Conversation With #214 - Natalie Wildgoose
Keep note of rising North Yorkshire/London lo-fi folk artist Natalie Wildgoose - who has just released her new EP 'Rural Hours'.
Taking a year to make, amidst long stretches of solitude, Rural Hours nevertheless sees Natalie return to the quiet richness of a folk ensemble. Never content to simply shack up in a recording studio however - with backing from the PRS for Women fund - she brought musicians Chris Brain (with whom she collaborates regularly) and Owen Spafford to a bothy high up in an isolated part of the Yorkshire Dales, two hours walk from the nearest village and without heating or electricity. Playing by candlelight, songs inspired by life and loss in North Yorkshire, by Emily Dickinson’s letters, or the Sibylline oracle of Ancient Greece play against the crackle of the fire and the wild winds blowing outside.
It’s an approach typical of Natalie’s artistic method. Spending her time scouring for pianos in remote corners of the Yorkshire Dales, she finds them in Victorian mills, grade II listed village halls, isolated chapels and A letting the spaces themselves shape the music. Recording music of her music to tape, it carries the rarefied qualities of an unearthed archive recording, seeking to slow down the frantic pace of modern life; uncovering the past, and reconnecting with the environments of the places and communities that hold her.
She took a moment to talk to us about how the EP came together.
Hey there Natalie, how are you? So your EP is out now how does it feel to have it out there?
Hello! My heart is filled with love and beyond gratitude. It has taken a year to create, and I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to make it. The support from PRS Women Make Music, state51, and all the people who have put time and love into this project means so much, I am very lucky to have them in my life.
It is called ‘Rural Hours' what is the meaning behind that?
Living between London and the moors of North Yorkshire, I am always searching for pianos in forgotten corners of the Dales. For much of the making of Rural Hours, I was alone, isolated in these buildings, writing songs in quiet rooms where time stretched. Later, I invited my friends and fellow musicians Owen Spafford, Chris Brain, Chester Caine, Matt Robinson, and artist and filmmaker Nina Maria Allmoslechner to enter the space and add their presence.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories you are willing to share with us?
The record was made in Victorian mills, historic village halls, and remote chapels, letting the spaces themselves shape the music. Being in such remote and sometimes difficult places, where everyday worries become so small, was incredibly important in influencing the writing.
For the last track on the EP, ‘In The North’, we were recording in a chapel next to a waterfall near my local village. I had already done two or three takes, and on the fourth, near the end, I felt this is the one. Suddenly, an RAF fighter jet flew overhead. These planes can break the sound barrier, they are so loud, and it tore through the song. I kept that recording as it is, and you can hear the plane in the background.
What are the key influences behind the EP?
There are many influences all around me in the spaces where I write. I use a lot of poetry to help inform my lyrics, and I also love researching the history of the spaces beforehand.
If the EP could be a soundtrack to any film which one and why?
Oh, I like this question. This film already has an amazing soundtrack, but I love Pride and Prejudice by Joe Wright.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
Maybe:
“Nearly happy again, in the winter night rain,
with the hillsides and the woods,
saw the grave where you stood,
you’d said the future looks good,
In The North.”
Now the EP is out there what next for you?
I have a tour with LYR starting on Thursday 16th April, and then lots of live shows for the rest of the year booked in, so I’ll be on the road quite a bit. Hopefully there will be some time to sit and start writing again, maybe an album.
