If there’s a romance attached to the changing seasons, there’s inevitably a sadness that sweeps through with it. For Zoe Graham, every note of her crystalline electronic pop is imbued with that bittersweet feeling; on her new single ‘Gradual Move’, the past is something constantly reshaped by increments, no matter how sudden some of life’s departures may seem.
Still only 22, Zoe is an artist who already feels the weight of several lives lived. Since moving away from her family home to start a new life, the gradual moves have caught up with her in less gradual ways.
“The total shift happened gradually over the six months from September 2018 to March 2019. In that time I had moved out, my family home looked drastically different, a relationship had ended, and my dog had died. I found it quite difficult to adapt to this change, but also coming to terms with the fact that things are only going to change even more – becoming thankful for the important things.”
“I used to write and perform purely on acoustic guitar,” she says. “My taste has shifted to music like St Vincent, Christine and the Queens, HAIM. Bad ass, girl-fronted pop and electronic music. That really is just where my heart lies at the moment.”
That shift has culminated in ‘Gradual Move’, a song built on warm synth tones and the shiver of late autumn mornings. Mixed by Grammy-award winning Eduardo De La Paz (Arcade Fire, Frightened Rabbit, Rae Morris), the meeting point between Zoe’s folk past and electronic pop present collide at various points on the track, though the song itself is largely in thrall to the latter; if the subject matter of lost homes feels more like a traditional folk subject, the expansive drums and lead guitar line take the track well beyond those confines.
UPCOMING DATES:
18th November – Glasgow, BBC Quay Session
21st November – Inverness, Mad Hatters
22nd November – Aberdeen, Spin Records
30th November – Middlesbrough, Westgarth Social Club w/Tom Joshua
7th December – Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
23rd January – Glasgow, Oran Mor (Celtic Connections)
