I used to have a professional bio here. 

 

Then I decided that’s probably not what you would like to read, and it’s also not what I prefer to write. Most of what I like to write is in my lyrics, so they would be the best place to start. Then again, if you are here perhaps you’re already familiar with those. If so, thank you for sticking around, read on for random musical childhood trivia. 

 

According to my unreliable childhood memory, and the slightly more reliable memory of my parents, I’ve been making up my own songs pretty much since I learnt to speak. The soundtrack of my infancy came from my own mouth, and the string of words I would stick to any tune I could grab from the ether. 

My sister’s favourite example is a little ditty I once improvised on the walk to primary school. Every day we would walk past lavender bushes which in the summer months would be absolutely teaming with with bees. To this day she is convinced that I was singing ‘love in the bushes’ as opposed to ‘lavender bushes’. I clearly wasn’t wised up back then as to lyrical copyright. 

 

I think Disney indoctrination has something to do with the fact that I would sing to absolutely every animal I came across from the age of about four. A resident duck duo used to procreate in our garden each year and I was convinced that the ducklings would only feed out of my hand if they got some form of vocal rendition to accompany their meal. Looking back, I’m sure they were just hungry and desensitised to the decibels coming from my lips. (This suspicion was confirmed when I once tried to pick up a duckling to sing to it’s little fluffy face - it’s mother flew at my head and wouldn’t let go of my wispy flyaway hairs until I had safely returned her offspring to the ground. I’ve sung at them from a distance ever since). 

 

That brings me onto my last piece of childhood trivia for you: I’ve always loved birds, so much so that when I decided to start songwriting in earnest at the age of twelve (‘earnest’ equating to carrying a notebook on my person at all times and drawing squiggly lines to show which direction the melody should follow for each word) I would subconsciously slip a different avian breed into each song. Perhaps that’s the effect of going to an all-girls school - you end up writing about birdlife instead of boys. Needless to say, Dad loves to tease me about it to this day and the association has stuck - every single piece of my merchandise has a bird of some description on it. 

 

I never quite know where to say I’m ‘from’. Since I was born I’ve lived in Shropshire, Devon, Nottinghamshire, Cambridge, Dorset and London. I usually claim to ‘hail from Dorset’ because that seems to make my ‘folkiness’ seem more credible, and that’s the current parental base, sorry if I’ve spoilt the magic. 

I’m currently living in Cambridge, enjoying the countryside lifestyle it offers whilst being able to hop on a train to the Big Smoke whenever musical opportunities arise. I’d love to move back to the Southwest at some point to be nearer family, the hills and the waves - give ‘Blue Southwestern Skies’ a listen and you might understand. I’m better with words when they’re put to music. 

 

I would still just about call myself a folk-inspired pop artist, but I’m trying out several genres at the moment; partly for the fun of it and partly because there’s nothing that irks me more than being put in a box and left to gather figurative dust. 

 

If you ever make it to a live gig (which would mean a lot. A £10 ticket is worth 3226 Spotify streams, and I much prefer faces to metrics), you’ll no-doubt see me using my loop station to make a whole choir out of me, myself, and I. Creating stacks and stacks of harmonies is definitely top of my ‘FAVOURITE THINGS TO DO EVER’ list. I’m still working out how to try and make a decent income off of that - perhaps my title would be ‘vocal harmonic soundscape creator’. Maybe I should try and become the next Enya and find myself some hobbits to sing to; give the ducklings a break. Who knows. 

 

Anyway, if you’ve got this far then I salute you, and I hope we can meet either virtually or in person at some point soon. I hope these songs make you feel things. If they do there’s nothing I appreciate more than people sending a message to say so. 

 

If you were actually looking for a formal bio, sorry you had to trawl through my birdlife-infused life story instead. My Artist Biography is on the next page. 

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Take care, and stay tuned. 

Love, Rach xxx